Posted by Robert Wagner on September 19, 2019, 1:46 pm
In addition to the last 3 posts I note the following. I have not seen the latest episodes but episode 4 with the announcer stating that Chet Atkins was responsible for getting Jim to go from high pitch novelty song singer to smooth baritone sad song artist, is so superficial as to be worthless. Even with "Four Walls" playing in the back ground. The following pretty long segment of Patsy Cline up to the plane crash ending episode 4 was, or is, the perfect intro for episode 5 to begin with Jim Reeves. They were both big at the same time in the Nashville Sound. It is the perfect opportunity to cover Jim now in the documentary. I don't think it is going to happen.
I have been watching the numerous promotions for the Documentary on various news sites on YouTube. They are sickening. Burns and Duncan admittedly go from knowing nothing about Country Music to being the last word on the subject. One promotion featured Vince Gill who is a known Jim Reeves Fan, yet nothing is said. Nothing about South Africa and the black population there adoring Jim's songs, even though black history is a big theme of the series. Nothing about Jim getting Dottie West her start with RCA even though empowering women is a big theme in the series. I could go on and on.
It appears that the musically ignorant Burns and Duncan have relied too heavily on the documents of Marty Stewart and the Carter Cash family.
I never thought Johnny Cash had that good a voice like George Jones in my first posting. However I saw him in Springfield Massachusetts and live on stage he sounded very good. Not so good as to dominate this documentary. His show was opened by the late Johnny Russell (Catfish John) who was fabulous. An aside.
As I said in my first posting the pseudo intellectual mindset of the liberally educated college set shows brightly in the Burns promotional spots.
Burns revels in the glow of now being the alpha and omega Country Music Historian. Believe me these people do not accept input from those not worthy. Believe me we are not worthy.
Tragic.
I have not lost all hope however. Burns joked in the CBS promotion about future endeavors.
Perhaps PBS could be encouraged do a Jim Reeves Documentary in the future.
Lord knows they owe it to Jim Reeves Fans and to themselves to fill the void and complete the record missed in this offing.
I am aware of Ken Burns' attempt to preempt criticism of his series by predicting ahead of time some fans would be disappointed, but that time constraints prevented him from covering everybody. That's b.s. Good writing and editing -- whether it be for print or broadcast -- can cover a lot of ground. ALL of the preeminent country music people could and should have been mentioned. ALL of them. But they weren't. Because Burns and his associates became infatuated with a few of the stars and decided to take side trips and get off on tangents. To on the one hand promote this series as being a definitive account of the history of country music, and on the other to EXEMPT major, major stars from attention -- is self-righteously disingenuous. Take, for instance, Jim Reeves, who was the progenitor of the Nashville Sound, had simultaneous hits in many foreign countries, and had crossover hits that scored in the pop and even jazz charts. LEFTY FRIZZELL got more attention than Reeves and guess who sold more millions of recordings. Jim. He had an epic career and was in a league with a Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra...except in the country realm. (If Burns were to do a history of pop music one could easily imagine him leaving out Bing Crosby). So many Opry stars, talented musicians and songwriters were omitted it was not only absurd, it is offensive to their legacies. Also, Burns always acts like he's Moses handing down pronouncements from on high. He does this in his numerous media interviews and acts like until he came along, the subject he has covered has never been thoroughly explored. He presents himself cockily as an expert (as he did during his appearance on the POLITICAL show "The 11th Hour with Brian Williams" Wednesday night) and unfortunately he has conned influential people and they applaud him. But the minute Ken opens his mouth it's clear he doesn't know half of what he's talking about. He repeats cliches as if they are fresh discoveries, uncovers very little new territory, gets historical events out of sequence, and utterly fails to properly contextualize what he reports. People on Facebook today have been praising Burns' work and saying how much they've loved watching his documentary. Oh how gullible they are...
100% right on! The undeserved recognition and attitude drive me nuts.
That being said some of the documentary is interesting and I have learned mostly trivia.
My wife can't stand watching it because of the early tinny, screechy, songs.
Jim took Hank Williams songs and made them wonderful. (Men with Broken Hearts) We used Jim's version of "We Could" featured in the episode, at my daughters wedding.
I'm afraid the fears of my first posting have come to fruition. If Jim isn't covered in episode 5 it's all over.