{"id":2447834,"date":"2019-08-21T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=311549"},"modified":"2019-08-22T07:52:16","modified_gmt":"2019-08-22T13:52:16","slug":"ken-burns-previews-country-music-documentary-in-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/ken-burns-previews-country-music-documentary-in-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Ken Burns previews \u2018Country Music\u2019 documentary in Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Filmmaker Ken Burns speaks before a preview screeening of his new documentary “Country Music” on Tuesday at Harris Concert Hall.<\/strong>
Lynn Goldsmith\/Special to the Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Ken Burns spent more than eight years working on his new 16-hour documentary series \u201cCountry Music.\u201d<\/a> He did 101 interviews, collected 1,000 hours of film and some 100,000 photographs, culled down to the 3,300 featured in the film.<\/p>\n

So it may come as a surprise that America\u2019s most beloved documentarian wasn\u2019t a country music fan when he started on this massive project.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a child of R&B and rock \u2018n\u2019 roll,\u201d Burns said backstage at Harris Concert Hall on Tuesday night before a preview of the new film. \u201cSo it wasn\u2019t in my system. I didn\u2019t know it. \u2026 But this has been as satisfying a production as I\u2019ve ever worked on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The eight-part documentary, which will begin airing on PBS on Sept. 15, tracks the history of country music from the early 20th century and the days of the Carter Family through the 1990s and the superstardom of Garth Brooks. Along the way it traces the music\u2019s role in American culture and counterculture, the evolutions of its sound as well as its place in gender equality and race relations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt exploded my preconceptions,\u201d Burns told the nearly full Harris Hall crowd during a post-screening discussion with Aspen Music Festival President and CEO Alan Fletcher and bassist Edgar Meyer.<\/p>\n

Fletcher asked Burns for his thoughts on the \u201cvery white\u201d world of country music and its perception as a regressive, male-dominated and often racist culture, noting segregation-supporting country icons like Minnie Pearl.<\/p>\n

Burns said he had been fascinated to learn about the African-American influence on early country music and noted that women have played a central role in the genre from the beginning \u2014 from the days of Sara Carter through Loretta Lynn\u2019s proto-feminist \u201cDon\u2019t Come Home A-Drinkin\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a remarkable story of very strong women, which belies our sensibility that this is essentially a conservative thing adhering to a tradition,\u201d Burns said. \u201cIt has all the problems, those things are here too, but it\u2019s about strong women and that floored us. \u2026 You will not believe me when I tell you this was done before the #MeToo movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Country music, Burns found, is far more complex than the stereotype of pick-up trucks and beer-swilling good ol\u2019 boys.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that art and the business of art is to transcend the simplistic, binary thing,\u201d Burns said, noting that the film is arriving soon after \u201cOld Town Road\u201d \u2014 a country song by the black, gay rapper Lil Nas X \u2014 broke the record as the longest reigning No. 1 charting song in history and underscored his film\u2019s thesis that country is more complex and inclusive than it might seem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you, Lil Nas X,\u201d he told the crowd.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s screening in Harris Concert Hall included a preview of eight segments of \u201cCountry Music,\u201d including a section on the \u201chillbilly Shakespeare\u201d Hank Williams and one on Patsy Cline recording \u201cCrazy,\u201d during which Willie Nelson tells the story of writing the ballad (he\u2019d originally titled it \u201cStupid,\u201d which drew laughs from the Aspen crowd) and going to Cline\u2019s home in the middle of the night to share it.<\/p>\n

A segment on Loretta Lynn depicts her trailblazing mid-1960s work writing about issues like spousal abuse, consent and women\u2019s rights in songs like \u201cDon\u2019t Come Home A-Drinkin\u2019\u201d and \u201cThe Pill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re writing about your life, it\u2019ll be country,\u201d Lynn says in the film, \u201cbecause you\u2019re writing about what\u2019s happening and that\u2019s all a good song is.\u201d<\/p>\n

A revelatory segment about Dolly Parton tells the backstory of her writing \u201cI Will Always Love You\u201d in order to get out from under the thumb of her creative partner Porter Wagoner. Other preview segments dug into Vince Gill\u2019s tortured, grief-laden composition of \u201cGo Rest High on That Mountain\u201d and the personal nature of country music fandom.<\/p>\n

Edgar Meyer, the Nashville-based classical and bluegrass musician, performed two solo pieces at the conclusion of Tuesday\u2019s preview presentation. He said he is excited to see the full series and is hopeful it will reshape the public\u2019s understanding of country music.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to show the country music that I love, and which all the musicians know about,\u201d he said. \u201cI look forward to learning a lot and raising the awareness of most people about what country music actually is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burns was introduced by Amy Margerum Berg, the former Aspen Institute executive and Aspen city manager, who is now president of Burns\u2019 nonprofit Better Angels Society. Tuesday\u2019s preview screening, hosted by the Aspen Music Festival and School, served as a benefit for the organization.<\/p>\n

The crowd included locally based funders of \u201cCountry Music\u201d including John and Jessica Fullerton, Fred and Donna Seigel and Mercedes Bass. Aspen-based music figures, including the DJ Dan \u201cPastor Mustard\u201d Sadowsky and singer-songwriter Jackson Emmer, also were in attendance.<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Filmmaker Ken Burns speaks before a preview screeening of his new documentary “Country Music” on Tuesday at Harris Concert Hall.Lynn Goldsmith\/Special to the Aspen Times Ken Burns spent more than eight years working on his new 16-hour documentary series \u201cCountry Music.\u201d He did 101 interviews, collected 1,000 hours of film and some 100,000 photographs, culled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 12:34:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2447853,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447834\/revisions\/2447853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}