Glad to know that the African-American influence was covered in the Burns show.
I'll watch it now.

Did Burns cover the evolution of the pedal steel guitar? It is so identified with the genre, Noel Boggs, Joachim Miller, Leon MacAuliffe, Buddy Emmons........

It was the fiddle, and not the banjo that was used mostly on the plantations by black musicians. It's notable that Big Bill Bronzy started in Georgia as a fiddler. The fiddle playing might be a fusion of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Southern African-Americans during slavery. Did Burns cover this?