Product Details

• Actors: Big Smith, The Pine Ridge Singers, The Baldknobbers
• Directors: Rick Minnich
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
• DVD Release Date: June 24, 2008
• Run Time: 80 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0015YUGV8
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #94,848 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Review

A rich journey through a cultural legacy. --indiewire

Product Description

In the 1800's a scrappy group of Scotch-Irish immigrants settled in the Ozark Mountains of Southwestern Missouri. Stereotyped as poor, lawless degenerates, these isolated hill folk over time became the butt of countless jokes and earned themselves the name Hillbillies. This enjoyable documentary captures the rich and wonderful sounds of hillbilly music by following three families of modern-day hillbillies back to the roots of their music-making heritage. Leading the pack is singer/songwriter Mark Bilyeu from the band Big Smith, who have been delighting audiences around the world with their foot-stompin' repertoire of songs, including some passed down through generations - twisted tales of moonshining and adultery alongside heartfelt stories of faith and life.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for hillbilly fans, June 26, 2008

By	Curt Wohleber (Columbia, MO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

My wife and I saw this at the True/False documentary film festival in Columbia, Mo. I was reluctant to see a movie with the word "hillbilly" in the title, but this turned out to be an engaging look at Big Smith, a terrific and difficult-to-classify band out of the Springfield area. Front man Mark Bilyeu is a smart and articulate guide to the region's musical traditions, which have yielded everything to the hillbilly kitsch of Branson's The Baldknobbers to, well, Big Smith.

The soundtrack, of course, is terrific, and includes recordings from live performances as well as studio tracks. Big Smith's ouevre is a blend of country, gospel, bluegrass, folk and rockabilly.

4.0 out of 5 stars In The Time Of The Good Old Boys (And Gals), October 3, 2009

By	Alfred Johnson (boston, ma) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Well, this traveling American "roots" music caravan that I have been running via the Internet, in this and other "hot" cyberspace spots, has been all over this country. I have been down in the Delta with the country blues artists like Robert Johnson, Skip James and Son House. I have been in those dust-blown Oklahoma hills with Woody Guthrie. I have been out West with the cowboy balladeers. I have been down in the swamps of Louisiana with the Cajun boys and girls, black and white. I've have been up in those Kentucky mountains with Roscoe Holcomb. Hell, I have even spent time, an inordinate amount of time, discussing roots music as it filtered through the 1960s folk revival in those rural meccas of New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts. You will agree I have been around. On this stop we go to the hills again this time to the Ozarks to "discover"....hillbillies and their musical traditions.

Now I know that it is hardly news that the term "hillbilly" has, over the last few decades, carried some pretty negative connotations. Hard-nosed 'wild men' truckers and car aficionados , honky tonks and honky-tonk women, "know-nothing" politics, in short, good old boys and girls fully enjoying the benefits of the 19th century in the outback. The truth or falsehood of those characterizations is not at issue here though. What concerns me is the addition of this "hillbilly" flavor to the "roots' music bandwagon. This is done here, by following the doings, comings, goings and whatnot of three modern "hillbilly" (or at least hillbilly-descended families) musical families out in Ozark country.

Some of this music, the motels, honky-tonks and barns where it is played, and the instruments used to play it are very familiar from other regions like those Kentucky hills mentioned before. This, moreover, makes sense because there are some common Scotch-Irish Child Ballad-like traditions that unite these various strands as the forebears drove relentlessly westward. This region, isolated back in the older times, did develop its own variations but I sense that, good old boys and girls or not, we are on some very familiar ground. And here is the kicker for this reviewer, personally, when it comes to knowledge of this music. Oh sure, as I have mentioned in other reviews, it was in the background in our house from my Kentucky-born father back in my youth. It's in the genes. But let me tell where I really started to get a better sense of this mountain music. Many years ago I used to listen to a Saturday morning local radio show from the wilds of Cambridge. The name of the show-"Hillbilly At Harvard". What do you think about that, my friends?

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, engaging documentary, July 13, 2008

By	R. Weir (Columbia, MO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've gotta agree with Curt, and not just because we used to share an office. This is more than just a fantastic, personal look at a band -- it's also the story of a musical tradition that has deep roots in the Missouri Ozarks and is being revived across the country. Any fan of traditional music would love this story.