Patsy Cline, of course, got a lot of attention which was fine, but Jim Reeves was mentioned ONCE. Although they talked about what was happening musically in 1959 and '60, how is it possible they could fail to mention "He'll Have To Go," which sold over 3 million recordings?
The Nashville Sound was briefly mentioned with a stale quote from Chet Atkins about it being about money. Actually, Chet had on various occasions been much more analytical in interviews but they chose to use that one stupid comment.
One thing that irked me is how they were so out of sequence with their photos; in mentioning Jim the camera zoomed in on the new RCA studio which Reeves never recorded it; the groundbreaking ceremony for it was held July 31 -- the day he was killed. Also, this misplaced "Four Walls" in the wrong year of course. And they showed still photos of Jim in the studio at his Christmas recording session without mentioning his name until the very end of that segment.
They showed a photo of the first Country Music Hall of Fame, which opened in 1967, and certainly doesn't belong in a show that supposedly covered the period up to 1963!
A lot of the footage is not new -- it's been around a long time. I realize that the producers needed to rely on that in the case of artists who are deceased. But anyone who has followed country music for awhile has already seen a lot of this.
Willie Nelson was quoted as saying that RAY CHARLES did more for country music than anybody else. Really?
Spending two hours listening to a listless, monotone narrator was really irritating. This guy showed no enthusiasm for his subject matter.
As much as I have admired Ken Burns' past work, he really blew it this time.
My impression is that this particular show was put together by somebody who knows absolutely nothing about country music and didn't bother to enlighten themselves. That dubious honor accrues to Dayton Duncan who scripted it. He's a long time partner of Ken. But ultimately everybody connected with this absolutely joyless and dreadful so-called documentary is to blame. There were numerous little errors along the way as well. Even when they talked about the plane crash that killed Patsy, they showed a twin engine plane. She was NOT killed in a twin engine aircraft. And they made it sound like Randy Hughes was flying her to all her show dates. Absurd.
I saw nobody's story on TV tonight that was more compelling than Jim Reeves.'s life, which remained UNTOLD. Yet Jim was only perfunctorily mentioned while we kept seeing and hearing Johnny Cash photos and video clips. Disgusting.
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