-
10 Questions with ... Ken Burns
September 15, 2019
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. -
BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
To the delight of the Country music industry, acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns turned his attention to this popular American music genre for his latest sweeping documentary, "Country Music," which began airing and streaming this week on PBS and releases on DVD September 17th. The eight-part, 16-hour series has been in the works for eight and a half years, with Burns and his team interviewing more than 80 artists, carefully selecting scores of songs, and sourcing thousands of rare photographs and video footage to tell the story of the genre's history, from its beginnings through its more recent history in the mid-1990s.
Burns has been making historical documentary films for more than 40 years, earning 15 Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Academy Award nominations along the way. He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in 2008. Among his best-loved films are "The Civil War," "Baseball," "Jazz," "The Vietnam War," and "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," among many others.
"Country Music" debuted on PBS on September 15th, and continues on September 16-18th, and September 22-25, beginning at 8pm (ET) each night. Burns' next film will focus on Ernest Hemingway.
1. In an interview on the "TODAY" show, Vince Gill said your film gave the Country format a dignity and respect it craved. Was that a goal, and how does it feel to know that had been the reaction in this community that has, for so many years, bristled over every hokey hay bale and wagon wheel that was trotted out as a set piece every time a Country artist made a national television appearance?
It wasn't a conscious attempt, but we're trying to do justice to the complexities of the stories we tell. We rejected from the very beginning any kind of superficiality or class prejudice about those hardworking people -- black as well as white -- that created Country music, or play Country music or enjoy Country music. That is a place that we don't go in our own work. And I must say, it's immensely satisfying to hear Vince respond this way, or others in the community, because it means that for those to whom this means the most, we've done a good job, we've done well by them.
2. What's the biggest misconception out there about Country music, in your opinion, and in what ways does your film help dispel it?
The biggest one is that Country music is just one thing, just a single entity. Everything in America is a mixture, a combination, an alloy. Even if you look at the sources of the Carter Family, the "big bang" of Country music supposedly takes place in the summer of '27 when Ralph Peer records, first, the Carter Family, and then in a later session Jimmie Rodgers. Well, Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family sound nothing alike. And within each of them, Jimmie Rodgers is himself a massive set of things. He hears the Mississippi black train crews, the Blues that they sing. He's steeped in Gospel. He has other sources. The Carter Family are the church, but A.P. Carter has been collecting songs with Lesley Riddle. One of their biggest hits, "Little Darling Pal of Mine," they got from a black church, where it was called "When The World's On Fire." And then Woody Guthrie kept the same music, same melody as "When The World's On Fire and "Little Darling Pal of Mine," and wrote "This Land Is Your Land." This is the great story.
So the idea that, somehow, commerce and convenience permits us to categorize any group of music, particularly Country music, into its own prison of definition is the thing that we abolished. It's not an island nation in which you need visas, and passports and special immigration legislation to get to. It is, in fact, attached to Jazz, and to the Blues, and to Folk, and to Gospel and to Rhythm & Blues. And Rhythm & Blues is the parent of Rock, to which it is also still attached, and Rockabilly, and it's got connections to Folk, and Pop and even Classical. So, the idea that it is one thing, and isolated and segregated as if it's down on some lower 40 bottom land hardly worth considering, is the thing that we joyously hope we wrecked completely.
3. You've said that the starting point for the film was when your writer and collaborator, Dayton Duncan, hit on a moment from around 1923 when there was this convergence of the growth of radio with Country phonographs. Can you elaborate on what role radio played in the birth, growth and sustained popularity of Country music?
Commerce and creativity we often assume that, like oil and water, they don't mix, but they're inextricably intertwined with each other throughout this story. At many times they're doing battle with each other. At many times they're in lockstep. For us, struggling to tell the story which we knew had its roots many centuries before, I think Dayton's genius was to set on that moment when Fiddlin' John Carson and then, later, the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers were being recorded. And then you have this brand new medium, which is able to broadcast this all across the country as a way to sort of anchor it, that this is the mass appeal. It's no longer being handed down from generation to generation, from granddaddy to sons to grandchildren. It's no longer being sung on just on porches and you're heard across the holler. It's no longer being played at a barn dance on a Saturday night to let off steam, or even in the work fields as you're working hard. It's now something that you can do for pleasure, and the radio is there to abolish loneliness, and it's a wonderful moment.
The creation of that, the first moment when Ralph Peer goes to Atlanta and records Fiddlin' John, gives us an opportunity then to go back and think about where the instruments and where the songs came from, and what were the folk traditions that brought it to this moment? And then go ahead to the original Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers to sort of end up that first episode.
Radio is hugely significant. It carried the news. The original definition -- if you look in a dictionary from 1910 -- broadcasting is a farmer walking down a row, a furrow, with a bag of seeds, and he's throwing them out, basically throwing them into the field from one point to many. That's what broadcasting is. By 1930, you look at a dictionary and that's, like, the second definition. The first is this radio signal that beams out to everybody. And so, in a wonderful sense, it's a way of distributing the thing that you have -- the thing that will grow -- as far as you can throw it.
4. You mentioned the barn dances. Can you talk a little bit more about their influence, and about WSM-AM/Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry in particular?
Every city had a barn dance that had a radio station. The biggest one was out of Chicago, the barn dance on WLS. They were owned by Sears, Roebuck and Company, and WLS stood for "World's Largest Store." Charlotte had one. Atlanta had a variation of it. Dallas, Shreveport, lots of places had it, and the National Life and Accident Insurance Company of Nashville started one. They had a barn dance that eventually switched its name in a very funny, humorous way to the Grand Ole Opry. And then, because of the central location of Nashville for the artists who would appear on Saturday night and then had to get to as many venues as they could during the week to make a living, and because it was 50,000 watts, became one of the dominant barn dances. And, of course, then it becomes the longest running radio program in the history of radio.
5. How do you set about creating a project like this that is so vast? Is there a beginning, a middle and an end fleshed out before you even begin filming, or do you see where the subject matter takes you?
We trust a process, and process means that we try our best not to superimpose any preconceptions and to be open for as long as we can. So instead of having a set research period, followed by a writing period, followed by taking that script which is written in stone, and that informs shooting and editing, we never stop researching. We never stop writing. And we also begin shooting and interviewing well before there's any script that exists. What that does is it liberates [us]. The same with the collecting of the photographs. We're not there saying, "Oh, we need to get a one or two photographs for the third paragraph on page seven of episode four." We just don't do that. We collect 100,000 photographs, and end up using only 3,400. [Maybe] 3,400 sounds like a lot, but they're there because we have to have them there.
The best analogy I can give you is that I live in New Hampshire, So does Dayton, so does [collaborator] Julie [Dunfey]. We make maple syrup here, and it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. Documentary filmmaking is like that. You would think making a film is an additive process. It's not. It's a subtractive or distillation process. So we need that time and that process the way we do it to help us get it right.
6. You and your team have such a talent for finding the emotional center of these stories. I've heard so many other people who have seen the whole film say they cried during every episode. In Country music's story, we've had tuberculosis, alcoholism, plane crashes, and falling off the side of a mountain, among other tragedies, but what's the secret to relating these facts in a way that will elicit emotion from the viewers?
It's not so much the fact of it -- the fact of a tuberculosis, or the fact of the, alcoholism or the fact of a plane crash. That's the distraction. It's how you build them up, the intimacy with which you communicate their complexity. They're not just this perfect icon to be then taken away. In the case of Jimmie Rodgers, and Hank Williams and Patsy Cline, whom you're referring to, you want to have a complex human being. You understand the ins and outs. You've met their children. You know how complicated their relationship with their spouse is. You understand what they've been through.
In my Civil War film, you don't go to Ford's Theater not knowing what's about to happen [to Abraham Lincoln]. You know what's going to happen, but good history ... is always thinking it might turn out not the way you know it did. So there's a part of you that gets to Ford's Threatre in "The Civil War" and goes, "Please let the gun misfire." It never does. The gun always goes off. [But] if you tell a good story, what is at least heretofore inevitable becomes as it was in the past.
You didn't know when you took off from Kansas City that you were going to die in that plane crash. You didn't know that Hawkshaw Hawkins or Patsy Cline was going to die with their manager and Cowboy Copas. You didn't know that. They didn't know that. And if you treat it [like] nothing is a foregone conclusion, then you put people in the moment. And if you tell the story well, and you tell it with the appropriate music, then you have the possibility of not eliciting the false, manipulated tears, you elicit genuine tears. And that would be in keeping with what Jimmie Rodgers, and Hank Williams and Patsy Cline always insisted [on].
As Hank Williams said, it comes down to one word: sincerity. We're not looking to bash you over the head. We're just saying these people mean something to us, and we hope they mean something to you. And their passing way too early is felt by us. We hope it's felt by you.
7. Women are so central to the story you tell here, and yet are not so central on Country radio these days. Did that surprise you to discover, and what can we learn from the format's history that might help the female artists of today?
That back half [of your question] is what it's about. Here's the news: Women are central to the history of Country music. Period. Full stop. Mother Maybelle [Carter] is the original American instrumental guitarist. That's something.
We shouldn't be surprised that there's a male patriarchy that makes life more difficult for women, that they have to outperform, or they have to dodge the advances of agents, and record executives, and disc jockeys and program managers. We know that. The whole history of humanity that's been going on. What's the news here is not that right now there seems to be some patriarchy reasserting itself in Country music on the radio ... That's, to me, not a story. That's like saying, "Breaking news, water is wet." What's breaking news is that throughout all the history of Country music, women have been central to this story. And Country music, which is usually seen as conservative, is, in fact, often well ahead of the times.
So when Loretta Lynn is singing "Don't Come Home A Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)," there is nobody in Rock 'n' Roll or Folk singing that. Nobody is speaking out for women on behalf of that kind of spousal abuse, or your right to your own body or just women's rights in general. And she follows that up with "The Pill," which is a declaration of independence. And what does Dolly [Parton] do with, "I Will Always Love You?" That's a declaration of independence.
These are really important songs from really important artists. And the fact that there are, on the Mount Rushmore of Country music, a lot of women, that's the headline. Not, like, "Stop the presses, women are being held back." That's always happening. I'm the father of four daughters and it pisses me off. But I'm more interested in the fact that in this music that people relegate and denigrate, it has been ahead of any other musical genre. Jazz was and still is a fraternity. Rock 'n' Roll, for the most part, is as well. Country music hasn't been.
8. So many of the artists you interviewed for this film have passed away since your interviews. Were you aware at the time that you were fighting the clock, in a sense, and have you had a similar experience with your other films as well?
Yeah, this is always the case with a film, particularly when you've got living witnesses to something that dates back. Whether it's World War II, or the Dust Bowl or this film, we go first to the people who are the oldest. I hate to say it, but we work our way down the actuarial tables. We're going to interview Little Jimmy Dickens and Ralph Stanley right off the bat. And because this is a long, attenuated process for us -- eight and a half years -- you want to get them.
I'm glad we got them, and I'm glad we got Merle [Haggard], but it's bittersweet, too, because we lost them and we're sorry they're not here to enjoy it and see themselves in it. But we also know we have them, and they've made measurable, contributions to the film, and we wish that we could look them in the eye and thank them.
We just were in Bakersfield at the end of July, and we visited that railroad car that got turned into a house [were Haggard grew up]. Merle's 97-year-old sister gave us a tour, and it was just this beautiful moment, but I started to cry because Merle wasn't there. In the film, he's like Zeus every time he opens his mouth. He says, perhaps the single most important thing in the film, to me, in the opening where he says [Country music is] "about things we believe in but can't see, like dreams, and songs and souls." It's just an amazing, amazing, comment.
9. What was your reaction to learning about the Country Music Association's Fan Fair, and how Country artists give up three or four days of bookings every year to perform for, and meet with, their fans for free?
That's the big thing about Country music. It's in every episode of our film - not Fan Fair, but the equivalent fact that people have a special relationship to the musicians who perform this [music], and those stars have a special relationship with the people. It's in no other art form. You don't go up to Mick Jagger and say, "Great job on that second set, Mick." Nobody lets you near him, but Garth Brooks comes and signs [autographs] for 20 hours at a Fan Fair he's not even invited [to]. He just comes.
That's the beauty of this, because these songs are about the experiences of real people, and Country music stars never forget that. Their audiences want to be able to look them in the eye and say, "I went through that," [or] "I'm going through that problem right now. That song got me through" ... That a very potent and powerful thing, and I'm huge awe [of it]. I have an enormous respect for that reciprocity that takes place between the Country musicians and their fans.
10. What's one element of the Country music story, and your film, that you found particularly interesting that nobody has really picked up on yet or asked you about in interviews?
The one that is the least frequently asked, if ever, is about Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. I think they are one of the great stories in all the Country music. It's first and foremost a love story of the most direct and pure kind. It's also a story of unbelievable creativity, people who compose songs that have sold a billion records. They're the people who moved to Nashville to show that it wasn't just a performance space, but it could be a songwriting space as well. That is a great story that I think our film tells. And it's part of a larger story of what the act of actual songwriting is about, whether it's Jimmie Rogers and his sister-in-law, Elsie McWilliams, providing these tunes working together -- she writing a full third of his hits -- or it's a Hank Williams pulling [songs] out of the sky from the creator, he would say, sometimes in 10 or 15 minutes. Just amazing, bravura pieces of poetry and music. And then progressing through Merle Haggard, the poet of the common man. And then Kris Kristofferson, who is bringing his background as an English literature scholar and a scholar of Shakespeare and William Blake, to bear on Country music lyrics that resound with a complexity and an intimacy that had rarely been seen before. That, to me, is the interesting part that people aren't talking about.
Bonus Questions
1. Were you a fan of Country prior to making this film? If not, did the film turn you into one?
I'm most definitely a fan now, but I'm a child of R&B and Rock 'n' Roll. I worked in a record store in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the late '60s and in '70 and part of '71, and I listened to [Country], but I wasn't -- I can't say -- a fan. I wasn't not a fan. It was just ... Johnny Cash crossed over and we all love Johnny Cash. "Okie from Muskogee" made us laugh. We loved that. But this has been a delight to get to know [Country]. It was the same with Jazz. I didn't know much about Jazz, so I needed to do a film on it. People say, "Well, now are you going to do Rock?" And I go, "No, I know Rock." [Laughs]
2. The idea of working on a film - or any project -- for eight and a half years is amazing to me. How much dedication does that take?
It doesn't take any. The hardest thing is to leave it. The only thing that mitigates the pain of leaving this project is conversations like this. It just keeps the subject alive. Starting Sunday (9/15) I'll sit down and I'll watch this film and it will pass. I will always be related to it, but once it's broadcast, it's not mine, it's yours. It's everybody else's. There's something incredibly bittersweet [about that]. The problem is not dedicating eight and a half years, it's the courage to actually say it's done and come to the realization that you're going to leave it.
3. Your films center on uniquely American themes. Why is it so important for you to hone in on largely domestic topics?
I love my country and am interested in stories, and if I were given a thousand years to live, which I will not be given, I would never run out of stories [to tell] in American history.
-
-