American Roots Music

5 Responses to American Roots Music

1. rhoads69 says:

   June 16, 2010 at 2:40 am

   Im only too the middle of part two of this four part series? just fantastic, i thought i knew alot about Music but this series put me in my place real damn fast.

   I love music with my whole heart and if anybody out there just loves music, this DVD will put an ear to ear smile on your face watching this. God why cant this get an Oscar? This deserves every award ever made.
   Rating: 5 / 5
2. M. J. MORAN says:

   June 16, 2010 at 5:37 am

   This DVD answers the question “Where did American Pop Music come from”? It traces the idioms of folk, gospel, jazz, r&b, native American song, and country, and shows their combination in the work of Elvis and others. It includes interviews with people who were there, when possible, and contemporary artists influenced by the past, when it was not. For example, an extensive section on gospel includes interviews with the late Tom Dorsey (gospel, not the big band guy) and insights from Mavis Staples. Narrated by a legend in country music, Kris Kristofferson, American Roots is a testament to the music that shaped our nation and our current pop culture.
   Rating: 5 / 5
3. J. Norris says:

   June 16, 2010 at 6:08 am

   Some great footage of real Music legends edited into obscenely short clips with unenlightening narrative commentary by a bunch of folk-music has-beens and nobodies vieing for the viewers sympathies by maundering on cluelessly about the fabled sufferings of the American underclasses. Lots of bogus romanticization which would be thoroughly unecessasary if they had simply shut up and let the music speak for itself (like i give a crap what KEB MO has to say about any of the great bluesmen!!). The treatment of most of the musical forms is hoplessley brief and slapdash – particularily the cajun and Zydeco segments. Unfortunately, a lot of people will claim to like this simply because they feel like they SHOULD, but this was a concept that had a lot of potential that was ultimately squandered. A waste of time and money.
   Rating: 2 / 5
4. Alfred Johnson says:

   June 16, 2010 at 6:53 am

   From soup to nuts, indeed. I have over the past couple of years gone through the back pages of the American songbook to look at old style country Music-eastern and western varieties, the blues both country and electric and all the regional variations like the Delta and Texas sounds to name a couple and the quintessential American music -jazz. I have gone back, way back, to the pre-radio, pre-recording days to get the lyrics for songs that dealt with hard times, soft times, soft loving, hard loving and no loving. I have taken musical trips through the bayous of Louisiana to get that Acadian/Cajun sound and I have gone to the hills and hollows of Kentucky to get that old time mountain music. I have looked at the roots of rock and roll backward, forward and sideway from rhythm and blues and gospel to rockabilly.

   Frankly, I had wanted to do the project for a long time and I was glad to do it. For those who have just come to an appreciation of roots music or who want the long view though this Public Broadcasting System (PBS) production will give you all you need to know in capsule form, complete with the informative “talking head” commentary with well-known musicians in each genre covered, in a 2 CD four hour series that goes though all the genres mentioned above and some that I have not spend much time on yet, especially Tejano and Carib-derived music.

   The producers of this effort have gone back to the old days of barn dances, local radio shows and vaudeville to bring out the various regional musics that form the roots of today’ musical expression. They trace the divergent black and white trends that converge in the post World War II period with the arrival of blacks in great numbers in the urban setting and whites, especially white teenagers hungry for new musical expression- as long as it was not something that their parents liked. Some time is also spent on the importance of the urban folk revival movement of the early 1960s as a central element in helping a whole generation search for those lost roots- all the way from gospel (in the church and in the streets), mountain music (especially the use of the old time musical instruments), Cajun (the whole Acadian exile experience when the bloody British took over in Canada) and the country blues, especially the work of those Mississippi Delta artists who influenced the post-World War II Chicago-based electric blues explosion. The best parts for me though were the Tejano and Carib-derived music sections that I had not previously been as familiar with. But I will get familiar fast. `Til then, the roots is the toots

   Rating: 4 / 5
5. Marilyn B. Glabicki says:

   June 16, 2010 at 9:39 am

   I loved this series. It is very well-done. They have taken 200 years of Music in this country (some goes back farther than that) and made a very interesting story that ties in the many peoples and sounds and styles. You end up with this continuous musical tapestry that has them all woven in. Boy, a lot is packed into a little viewing time. You see nice long excerpts of live performances of all types. There are interesting interviews with performers. The narration is informative and stays on track with what you’re watching. I really loved the music – all of it. And there was so much, no matter what your preference. Seeing how music evolved- and seeing where it’s going and can go – that was fantastic. When it was over, I felt like I had been left with a timeless gift.
   Rating: 5 / 5