Singing Cowboys
In an exclusive interview, filmmaker Ken Burns discusses his new documentary that explores the origins of country music and its impact on the West.
American history cheers every time Ken Burns makes a new film. The prolific documentarian has made films covering the West, baseball, the Civil War, jazz, the national park system, the Vietnam War, World War II, the Brooklyn Bridge and many others. For his newest film, Country Music, Burns turns his attention to the century-old music genre that was once called “hillbilly music” and is today a billion-dollar industry.
We interviewed Burns and his longtime collaborator and writer Dayton Duncan about the new
16-hour series, which premieres on September 15 on PBS member stations around the country.
For more information about the show, including a full schedule of episodes, visit www.pbs.org.
What surprised you most as you dove into this subject?
Ken Burns: We were constantly surprised by many things— wonderful characters, amazing stories behind some of the music’s iconic songs, the emotional power of so many songs, and the artistry of the songwriters and performers, many of whom rose up from the most abject poverty.
Dayton Duncan: But what struck us the most––and we think it will surprise many viewers who may have a narrow stereotype of country music––is that it never was (and still isn’t) one type of music, it’s many styles of music. It sprang from many roots and over the course of the 20th century it sprouted many branches. It has a wide-armed embrace: from Appalachian ballads of sorrow and struggle to rollicking Western swing, Memphis rockabilly to Austin’s “outlaws;” from church songs to honky tonk, the smooth Nashville Sound to the harddriving Bakersfield Sound, from train songs to cowboy songs. As Dolly Parton told us, “There’s something in it for everyone, and everyone can relate to it.”
Country music is still very much thriving today, in ways that blues and jazz aren’t. What do you attribute that lasting success to? And what do you think some of the early artists would think of modern country music?
Duncan: We deal in history, not mind-reading (particularly of
people who have been dead a long time!), so it’s hard to say what the early country artists would think of modern country music. Probably they’d really like some of it, and not be drawn to other parts of it––just as they had their own favorites and dislikes in their own time.
Burns: What makes country music endure is that it deals with the most basic, universal emotions and experiences and turns them into songs that everyone can relate to. The great jazz artist Charlie Parker used to go to a bar in New York City, plunk some nickels into the jukebox and play Hank Williams songs. When his fellow be-boppers asked him, “Why are you listening to that?” he answered, “It’s the stories. Listen to the stories.”
Our readers would be very interested to know about how country music was influenced by, or influenced, the culture of the West? What did you discover about music and early American cowboys?
Burns: One of the first new branches of country music sprouted when Gene Autry stopped trying to be one of the many imitators of Jimmie Rodgers and instead started singing songs that related to his growing up in Oklahoma. He became a huge star on the “barn dance” broadcast by radio station WLS in Chicago and then was brought to Hollywood to appear in movies––fighting the bad guys, but always with time to sing a few ballads. It touched off a “singing cowboy” craze that swept the silver screens across the nation. Artists like the Sons of the Pioneers (which included Leonard Slye, who later would take the stage name Roy Rogers) created a distinctive sound that people adored. Many country artists, whether they were Westerners or not, started wearing cowboy hats and boots. Duncan: A fair number of country music’s greatest artists had roots in the West, particularly Texas. Marty Robbins grew up in Arizona, and when he finally got the chance to choose the songs for a new album, he returned to his roots with an album exclusively filled with gunfighter ballads. “El Paso,” which he wrote and recorded (and always considered his favorite song), is now in country music’s pantheon. Reba Mcentire was a first-class rodeo barrel racer and was discovered by someone hearing her sing
“The Star-spangled Banner” at the National Finals Rodeo, which led to her first recording contract. From “Pancho and Lefty” (written by Texan Townes Van Zandt) to “Amarillo by Morning” (recorded by George Strait, who grew up on a ranch), the West has always added one of the flavors of this great American music.
Duncan: When we did our film The West, we pointed out that cowboys often sang to their cattle herds at night to keep them calm. But as one of our historians points out in Country Music, they probably didn’t yodel. That came from Jimmie Rodgers’ influence on Gene Autry. Autry yodeled because Rodgers had; and once Autry set the standard, all singing cowboys started yodeling. What role, if any, did artists (painters and sculptors) have in the history of country music? Burns: We begin our film with a story about a painting in the Country Music Hall of Fame called The Sources of Country Music by Thomas Hart Benton. (We did a film biography of him several decades ago, by the way). It’s a wonderful painting, and Kathy Mattea, who once worked as a tour guide at the Hall of Fame, describes the color and energy of it––from riverboats to trains, church singers to fiddlers and dulcimer players, a black man playing a banjo, and, in the right foreground, a cowboy strumming a guitar. We chose to begin with that because it’s a great work of art in its own right, which simply by its choices of images––and the energy in the scene––perfectly encapsulates the diverse stands of the music we then spend the next 16 hours exploring. Benton did it in one painting!