In September, Ken Burns released his thorough documentary, Country Music. The 16-and-a-half-hour-long PBS series looks closely at the 100-plus-year history of the American art form. For Burns, whose films have exhaustively covered quintessentially American topics like the Brooklyn Bridge and Jazz, the task meant combing through thousands of photos and hundreds of hours of interviews. The work is staggering and came at the perfect time.
Country music has deep roots and a long tradition. Much of it is beautiful. Listening to Hank Williams or Loretta Lynn is divine, of course, but both America and the genre have changed significantly since the days of Merle Haggard. Today, country music has many influences beyond the prairie and the porch. Pop is infused in the music. So too is hip-hop. Furthermore, the people making the music look and live differently from many of the heroes depicted in the early days of Burns' film.
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