Customer Reviews

American Roots Music [DVD]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As an overview of roots music, it's hard to quibble with this fascinating package. But for real fans, there's one serious, serious problem:

There is some amazing footage that I have never seen, that they have unearthed. Live performances by Leadbelly, by Woody Guthrie, by Howlin' Wolf, by Hank Williams. And unlike Ken Burns' astonishing "Jazz," not only are these rare, rare performances cut horribly short...but the narrators talk over them, so you can't hear the artists' performances.

There are some full-length performances on the DVD that were not on the series when it played on TV..but they were of "lesser" artists, for the most part. Here were legends of the '40s actually captured live--including Leadbelly in prison garb--and they have mutilated the performances. Shame.

The PBS American Roots Music series - both the 4 part documentary on DVD and 4 CD boxed set - is a commendable work. It is an incredible education in not only popular American music and culture, but history, and should be required viewing and listening in high schools.

Many of the problems in American Society and its youth today stem from a complete lack of pride and self-awareness. A quick survey of popular music and culture reveal a frightening level of ignorance of America's history, values, and ideals. In short, while the series focusses on America's musical traditions, it does a fantastic job of conveying a sense of America's "roots" in a positive, enriching manner.

The DVD documentary strikes a perfect balance between glossing over, and becoming bogged down in, the material. Unlike the Ken Burns' projects that exhaust the viewer's interest and collapse under their own weight, the series is informative and educational, yet entertaining. It is not MEANT to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject - and so some reviewers here are missing the point - that would take 40, not 4, episodes. Rather, it is an introduction and a sampler; peaking our curiosity and prompting us to investigate and research further the wonderful heritage of music out there. And in that, it succeeds marvelously.

What also impressed me was the documentary's remarkable objectivity. While it eschews political correctness, it doesn't necessarily candy coat anything either. What it does do is present the material in a respectful, thoughtful, intelligent, and unbiased manner - something so lacking in today's political and social discourse. So in this sense, folks looking for something with an "agenda" - conspiracies, skeletons in the closet, and historical revisionism - may be disappointed by the documentary.

The CD boxed set is equally well-done: a fantastic booklet, thorough liner notes, and collection of songs that is a music lover's dream. Again, it is intended to be a sampler - great songs by landmark artists - not an exhaustive account of American Roots music. And also like the documentary, its meant to be a enriching, uplifting - not deconstructing - experience.

If the series has a shortcoming, it is the absence of one of the major "roots" - Jazz - which was no doubt and most unfortunately excluded, because of the recent Ken Burns' PBS documentary. But to exclude Jazz from the discussion of American Roots music, means we do not have the entire picture. And so in that sense, the series is somewhat flawed.

Still, its hard to find any other fault with the series. This is a work that TRULY embraces and celebrates America's cultural diversity. Entertaining and enlightening, I would heartily recommend owning the box set and DVD for one's own edification as well as a way to help introduce friends and family to REAL American music - in all its forms.

Its hard to believe someone budgeted a 4-part series that says so little about such a fascinating and important subject. This is truly one of the worst documentaries I've ever seen and in four volumes! The first episode makes no sense, its just bits and pieces of sound clips, film and photos supposedly representing the development of roots music but there's no story that ties it together. For example, gospel music is one of the foundations of roots music. The documentary spends a fair amount of time on the topic but gives no real explanation of what it is or why its so important. You have to already be familiar with the history of american roots music to put together the confusing pieces. Kris Kristoffersen narrates and sounds like he's about to fall asleep. Its very lame, don't waste your money.

THIS IS A VERY COMPREHENSIVE, VERY AUTHORITATIVE , AND VERY HISTORICAL DOCUMENTARY OF AMERICAN ROOTS MUSIC. THIS DOCUMENTARY CONTAINS A WEALTH OF AMERICAN MUSIC HISTORY AND THE PIONEERING ARTISTS WHO LAID THE FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN MUSIC!!! THIS IS A 4 HOUR, 4 EPISODE 2 DISC DOCUMENTARY WITH HISTORICAL PARTIAL PERFORMANCES, AND/OR COMMENTARY ON SUCH ARTISTS AS: JIMMIE RODGERS (THE FATHER OF COUNTRY MUSIC), THE CARTER FAMILY (THE FIRST FAMILY OF COUNTRY MUSIC), MUDDY WATERS (A LEGENDARY BLUESMAN), B.B.KING (A LIVING LEGEND OF THE BLUES), BOB WILLS (KING OF WESTERN SWING), HANK WILLIAMS (KING OF COUNTRY MUSIC), BILL MONROE (A LEGENDARY BLUEGRASS MUSICAN), EARL SCRUGGS (A LEGENDARY BLUEGRASS MUSICIAN), MAHALIA JACKSON (A SOUL MUSIC QUEEN), CHIFTON CHENIER (THE KING OF ZYDECO), WOODY GUTHRIE (A FOLK MUSIC PIONEER), AND MANY, MANY MORE!!!!

YOU GET COMMENTARIES BY MARTY STUART, GILLIAN WELCH (OF OF THE O BROTHER ART THOU MOVIE), RICKY SCAGGS, RUFUS THOMAS, BONNIE RAITT, MAVIS STAPLES, DOYLE LAWSON, RAPLH STANLEY, ARLO GUTHRIE, KEITH RICHARDS, SAM PHILLIPS, MERLE HAGGARD, BENICE JOHNSON, ROBERT MIRABAL AND MANY OTHERS.

EPISODE 1:
1.THE FISK JUBILEE SINGERS (THESE WERE AFRICAN AMERICAN SINGERS, WHO WERE IN COLLEGE, AND THEY SUNG SPIRITAL MUSIC, TO SUPPORT THEIR COLLEGE, THEY EVEN TRAVELED ACROSS THE COUNTRY PUTTING ON SHOWS THAT WERE WELL RECEIVED BY BOTH BLACK AND WHITE AUDIENCES. THEY STARTED AROUND THE 1870' BEFORE THERE WAS RECORDED MUSIC).

1. RECORDED MUSIC: A DOUMENTARY OF THE BEGINNING OF RECORDED MUSIC.

2. THE BRISTOL SESSIONS: FEATURES JIMMIE RODGERS (YOU GET A GREAT ALMOST COMPLETE PERFORMANCE OF JIMMIE RODGERS SINGING "WAITING ON A TRAIN". AND YOU GET HISTORY ON THE CARTER FAMILY. THE BRISTOL SESSIONS WAS ONE OF THE FIRST SESSIONS TO RECORD MUSIC ON RECORD, AND JIMMY RODGERS AND THE CARTER FAMILY WERE RECORDED AT THESE BRISTOL SESSIONS.

3. DELTA BLUES: FEATURES A HISTORY AND PARTIAL PERFORMANCES BY LEGENDARY MISSISSIPPI DELTA BLUES MUSICIANS. YOU GET A GOOD PARTIAL PERFORMANCE OF SON HOUSE (A LENGENDAR DELTA BLUESMAN) AND OTHERS.

4. THE GRAND OLE OPRY

5. GOSPEL IS BORN( THE STORY OF THOMAS DORSEY - THE FATHER OF BLACK GOSPEL MUSIC).

EPISODE 2:
6. COWBOY MUSIC AND WESTERN SWING
7. LEAD BELLY AND LOMAX
8. WOODY GUTHRIE
9.BLUEGRASS
10. HONKY TONK MUSIC
11. THE BLUES AND RADIO

NOW, YOU GET BONUS FULL LENGTH PERFORMANCES BY BOB WILLS, EARL SCRUGGS, AND DOC WATSON.

EPISODE 3:
12. CHIGAGO BLUES
13. B.B KING
14. GOLDEN AGE OF GOSPEL
15. THE WEAVERS
16. THE FOLK REVIVAL
17. NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL

EPISODE 4:
18. CAJUN MUSIC
19. ZYDECO MUSIC
20. TEJANO MUSIC
21. NATIVE AMERICAN MUSIC
22. NAKAI AND MIRABEL (NATIVE AMERICAN MUSIC).
23. EVOLUTION OF ROOTS MUSIC.

THEN YOU GET FULL LENGTH BONUS PERFORMANCES BY SISTER ROSETTA THARPE, STEVE RILEY AND THE MAMOU PLAYBOYS (CAJUN), AND VALERIO LONGORIA.

OVERALL, THIS IS A GREAT HISTORICAL DOCUMENARY OF AMERICAN ROOTS MUSIC. IT'S DIFFICULT TO DESCRIBE THE ENTIRE SERIES IN DETAIL, BECAUSE IT CONTAINS SUCH A WEALTH OF INFORMATION.

IT YOU ARE EXPECTING A LOT OF FULL LENGTH PERMANCES YOU WILL BE DISAPPOINTED, BUT IF YOU LIKE AMERICAN MUSIC HISTORY, THEN YOU'LL ENJOY THIS ONE, AND IN THAT CONTEXT, I DO RECOMMEND THIS ONE.

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.

When I saw this picture of BB King on the cover of the DVD , I thought I was in for a real historic musical treat. When I read the back of the box and saw that they had rare footage and that they actually had a chapter on Zydeco, I got even more excited. I immediately rushed to the sales counter at Tower Records and gave them my hard earned 40 dollars plus tax. When I got home, I put the DVD in the player and main menu appeared. I selected the chapter on Zydeco, because it is a music that my family in Southwest Louisiana was instrumental in creating. When the video began to play, my excitement turned to disgust, for they attempted to present this very Black Louisiana Creole music as a spin off of so-called "Cajun" music. Other than the brief footage on Clifton Chenier, the video didn't interview or expose the viewers to not one Black Creole creator of the music. Instead they interviewed various white folks, who even if they considered themselves experts, are at best outsiders of the Black Creole culture, and judging from what they shared on the video they didn't know that much about the music.

In the chapter covering Zydeco I would have loved to see some rare footage or mention of the "juré" music of the Black Southwest Louisiana Creoles that later became what is called Zydeco. I would have loved to hear stories from the common folk around Opelousas, Ville Platte, Mamou, Eunice and Plasiance telling about the racism of the Cajuns toward the Black Creoles of the area, and how this racism reinforced the seprate musical worlds of the Cajuns from that of the Black Creoles. Instead this video painted a very false picture of cultural homogeneity between two very distinct people who have been at odds for over two centuries. While it is true that the Black Creoles of Southwest Louisiana had French folk songs in their repetoire, Black Creole music ( including so-called "Zydeco") is no spin off of Cajun music. To the contrary, Cajun musicians are borrowing from Black Creole music at an alarming rate. In fact the only other musicians covered in the Zydeco segment is a band of white folks who according to the video are "blending elements of Cajun music, Zydeco and Swamp Pop". The makers of this video should have dug a little deeper into American soil and touched the deepest roots before projecting such an influential film into the market place of ideas. This DVD is sure to mislead at lease a million people. People should watch this video with caution.

(reprinted with permission from blackdotcafe magazine oct/nov 2002 issue)

There's much to like in this piece, but as an attempt to document American Roots Music, it is definitely lacking.

1. First of all, they do not define what Roots Music is which allows them to define the term as they prefer. Shouldn't part of the definition be music that was not brought to America by immigration, but developed within the American experience?
2. As you might expect with PBS, there's little attention given to gospel music. It's addressed only as it overlaps with bluegrass or is limited to the African American experience. Even in the latter case, attention is primarily given to the breaking of barriers, like the female guitar playing minister.
3. In much of the film, especially the first episode, there should be more footage shown (this is great stuff) and less talking heads drowning out the music. The selection of people providing input is not obvious. Is Bonnie Raitt more connected to roots music than other musicians/performers, or was she just more willing to participate in the project? Also, why is a Canadian, Robbie Robertson, one of the primary sources for commentary?
4. Finally, this is such a big subject that it should have been at least as lengthy as Ken Burn's Jazz documentary to have been addressed properly.

Some other reviews you'll read here find much fault with this documentary, mostly related to too little time spent on a genre or to not letting the wonderful musicians play through.

Sure, it would have been great to have heard more about the musicians, to have heard more from them, and to have included more of them. And I'd further ask: Bob Dylan but not Joan Baez? Cajun but no Beausoleil? Zydeco but no Beau Jocque? No mention of the first landmark album Will the Circle be Unbroken by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band?

I could go on, but then, as one good reviewer said, this would have needed 40 episodes, not 4.

Despite its shortfalls, I found American Roots Music both educational and engrossing. (Except, that is, for the precious time wasted on Native American music. Political correctness run amok.) No hesitation recommending this set until a second edition comes out one day that's at least twice as long.

This documentary might be most valuable as a tutorial to your teenagers who think music started with N.W.A. and ended with Britney Spears. As a child of the Sixties graced by its wonderful music, gosh, how I feel sorry for them.

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

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.