Posted by Wayne G. Barber
|
|
| Dear Wayne,
|
|
|
From Country Music, Johnny Cash at his home in California, 1960. Photo courtesy Sony Music Archives.
|
|
Ken Burns’ latest masterpiece, Country Music, debuts this Sunday. What motivated the iconic documentarian and his team to take on this subject? For a direct answer, Burns quotes songwriter Harlan Howard’s definition of the musical genre: “three chords and the truth.”
“It is about human emotions,” says Burns, and finding topics that “tell us a lot about who we are — not just in the era that we are covering, but who we are now.”
Maybe you’re a diehard fan of country. Perhaps you haven’t really connected to the music before. Either way, this carefully constructed 16-hour journey from the genre’s roots to the mid-1990s will open your eyes to the many stories behind this uniquely American art form.
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment