There may be no documentarian who’s ever taken the dictation to “show your work” more seriously than Ken Burns. The omnipresent filmmaker has made his name on deep, dense dives in…
many dots, many of them as compelling as American history ever gets. As written by Duncan, “Country Music” unfolds as both an oral history and string of flattering portraits. Iconic figures like Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and Hank Williams providing narrative throughlines; some episodes encompass a decade, others just a few pivotal years. The passion for the subject matter shines through the grainy recovered footage and insights from country music luminaries .
“Country Music” has such a palpable reverence for its material and charismatic characters, in fact, that it almost becomes preemptively defensive. As the docuseries itself describes in painstaking detail, country music was borne out of frustration, poured out of people who felt overlooked and under-appreciated.
The first couple episodes do detail the African origins of the banjo and the unavoidable truth of country’s popular minstrel shows, and a turning point of a middle episode shines a welcome spotlight on groundbreaking Black country singer Charley Pride. But throughout its 16 hours, the series is more likely to acknowledge a racist reality before quickly pivoting to an anecdote about someone like Pride overcoming it.
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