Country Music: The Hillbilly Shakespeare and more; 5 Episodes; Ken Burns

Country Music by Ken Burns

From BBC 4 (for 29 days only), BBC iPlayer

From the beginnings until 1933:

"After centuries of percolating in the American South, what was first called hillbilly music began to reach more people through the new technologies of phonographs and radio. The Carter Family, with their ballads and old hymns, and Jimmie Rodgers, with his combination of blues and yodelling, became its first big stars".

Episode 2 (1933-1945)

Episode 3 (1945-1953)

Episode 4 (1953- 1963)

Episode 5 (1964-1968)

My photos - JP

To the Hillbilly Shakespeare:

Excuse me while I get my guitar and play a little country song I composed called “Thank you, Hank”:

“I enjoyed the good music,

Thank you, Hank.

I loved that sad singing,

Thank you Hank.

As I sit here and booze,

I share all your blues,

Thank you Hank,

Thank you Hank,

Thank you, Hank.”

And a poem:

Blue Ridge Mountains

Blue Ridge mountain horseback ride;

Down the forest track in Fall.

The owl is watching. The coyote prowls.

The deer are grazing; quilts are stitched

In the Shenandoah valley.

Country singers entertain us:

Bluegrass or Nashville, they glorify war.

Photos taken in Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia;
Franklin, Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee;

Nisbet, Mississippi; Ferriday, Louisiana;
The Carter Family Fold, Hiltons, Virginia.

Update 8th December, 2019

Just listened to a BBC World Service radio broadcast, Wars and Peace, Boston Calling, which included an item on bluegrass music, about the band Che Apalache wanting to make bluegrass music more inclusive. Joe Troop, who's committed to international artistic dialogue, talked of division-based politics in the USA. Elsewhere (Billboard) he had talked of the rise of white nationalism, of fear and mistrust, of "foreigners" being deemed a threat by the government and fellow citizens. In the BBC programme, he said "Bluegrass audiences are wide-ranging but sometimes you'll encounter hate speech at bluegrass festivals a sort of symbolism that encroaches on other people's comfort...I think that bluegrass, when it was coming into existence, wasn't that at all; it's been estranged from what it really is". 

It made me think of my old Blue Ridge Mountains poem (above), which ends:

"Country singers entertain us:

Bluegrass or Nashville, they glorify war". 


Only a very few songs do so, I admit. The real stuff remains among my favourite forms of music.