History of Country Music: BBC2

Subject: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Harry Basnett
Date: 23 Feb 03 - 07:59 AM

Did anybody else see 'Lost Highway: The History of Country Music' which began on BBC2 last night (Saturday 22nd. )? An interesting opening programme to the series featuring clips of the Carter Family, Jimmy Rodgers, etc,. Very well put together and there's even a BBC book to accompany the series.

Which beggars the question...why on earth can't the Beeb do something similar with the history of English folk music utilising the masses of archive material they must have at their disposal? I'm fully aware that there are inroads being made on BBC4 but nothing on this scale!

Anyway...all griping aside, 'twas a very interesting programme and next weeks will bo highlighting Hank Williams Sr.

All the best................Harry Basnett.

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Feb 03 - 08:07 AM

Here

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: allanwill
Date: 23 Feb 03 - 08:50 AM

OK, now I'm confused.

Watched a programme on Aussie TV a couple of weeks ago called "Down from the Mountain", which was just a concert at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. It did feature performances by Alison, Emmylou, Gillian (and David Rawlings), etc but there was no Kristoffersen, Scaggs, Gill, Nelson or Louvin and no story or history of the music.

What - did we just get an edited version?

Allan

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Dead Horse
Date: 23 Feb 03 - 03:02 PM

Not my kind of music, I thought, as I sat with the remote in hand ready to switch off. Instead I became more & more interested in what turned out to be "Old Timey" rather than C&W. Good programme. Glad I saw it through.

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 09:26 AM

I doubt I'll be interested in the later ones but enjoyed the first and next week it's Hank William I,but I'll have to remember to tape it as I have a 3-line whip to support Herself's appearance as Fairy Godmother (own wand, will travel)in the church panto AND I've to host drinks before and after for about a dozen friends and family using our drive as a carpark and walking up to the school where the show is.

RtS
(move over, young dog, there's an old dog movin' in)

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Tam the bam fraeSaltcoatsScotland
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 10:09 AM

I watched it and I thought that it was a good programme, I just like any type of music except for the shit that that they put out now on the 'pop charts'.
I wish that they would do the same for British folk music.

Tom

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Greycap
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 12:04 PM

Great programme .....so far. Wait until we get to the Faith Hill, LeAnne Rymes & the Be Good Tanyas section. Not forgetting all the new young Nashville Hat acts pontificating about their careers from 18 years old to today ( 19 years old ).
Still, let's have faith, the first one was fine.

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Harry Basnett
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 01:27 PM

But as I said..why the hell can't they do a series of this standard about British folk music?

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 06:04 PM

What do people see in Alison Krause? The programme seemed to present her bland stuff as some kind of development from the incredible singing style of Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley. To my ears, all she has done is surgically removing everything from their styles that made early bluegrass exciting, and replaced it with creamy pap. It's quite pretty singing, but pretty sad when heard after the real thing.

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Compton
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 06:47 PM

The "turn" that should have done more was Ricky Skaggs..When he gets going then it's worth hearing..I remember the film and record Live in London, some years ago with Elvis Costello. The programme was better than I thought it was going to be!!

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 25 Feb 03 - 03:26 AM

I missed it! I shall have to wait for the repeats now ... I'm not sure I'll be interested in the later progs, though.

I think the problem about getting the Beeb to do the same for British Folk Music is this: today's C&W is very popular, very commercial and takes a big share of the market; folk isn't, isn't and doesn't. It's too much a minority interest to attract that kind of treatment.

Steve

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: greg stephens
Date: 25 Feb 03 - 04:07 AM

Steve parkes: I'm sure your analysis is correct as regards the USA, but the BBC is British. My impression is that the British folk scene is more active than the country scene, judging by the range of festivals, clubs etc available. I haven't a clue if that is reflected in record sales... do you have any comparative figures?

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 25 Feb 03 - 04:36 AM

Greg, I'm really going on the impressions I get from ads in local papers for live performances. For quite a few years, there have been many C&W gigs, but not many folk gigs advertised apart from local festivals. I interpret this as meaning commercial venues find it profitable to put on Country bands and that advertising them puts more bums on seats. But not Folk bands.

I suppose (but I don't know!) it's the appeal of the exotic. Look at line dancing: it appeared just a few short years ago, but now there are shops that cater exclusively for line dancers. It's the old story of our own traditions not taken seriously.

And even Paul McCartney would have a problem with a song about stabbing one's illegitimate baby in the head with a penknife!

Steve

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 25 Feb 03 - 04:38 AM

Alinact -- two different things. Down From The Mountain was a gathering of the O Brother performers in concert. The first episode of Lost Highway was also called Down From The Mountain, presumably partly to reflect the O Bro influence on the renaissance in the music and to indicate the original roots in Mountain music.
There's obviously a little pocket of country music fans at the Beeb (Top of The Pops 2 often features country, for example). Maybe it's worth checking production credits on the recent British folk music programmes and targetting the programme-makers themselves to ask why they don't make more.
Interesting point of synchronicity --- Lost Highway was made by BBC Bristol, and the place where Ralph Peer recorded Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family? Bristol, Tennessee.

BJ

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: nickp
Date: 25 Feb 03 - 07:28 AM

The Bristol link - how curious... well noticed BJ

Loved the archive material - more please - and the 7 year old Ricky Skaggs performing! I expect the modern stuff will wash over me but I'll make sure I watch it just in case.

Wonder if it'll come out on a 'buyable' video?

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Peterr
Date: 25 Feb 03 - 04:50 PM

Like many above, I watched from curiosity and was caught by the whole thing which I didn't think I was interested in. Wasn't Scruggs amazing? Re. English folk, as I've seen on another thread, if there was more of it on the media, would more people get to discover it, or do the powers that be know that in fact it really is a very small minority who want it? I saw something recently which mentioned that the English weren't interested in their own traditions, and it was written in in 1910, so nothing new.
I was very surprised to find that when we started doing a mummers play very few of the audience had even heard the term, even though we used as a basis scripts from the area.
Sorry, digressed from the subject.

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: allanwill
Date: 26 Feb 03 - 09:04 AM

Thanks, BJ.

Allan

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: GUEST,scott
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 06:33 PM

Hey Guys,

In case anyone was looking for it. Looks like someone posted the whole series on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SChiiqQg9TA

enjoy.

Scott

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: kendall
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 10:50 PM

Interesting that they call it the history of country music and then start with Hank Williams.
The first one was Vernon Dalhart, then Jimmy Rogers the singing brakeman.
I was never a big fan of Hank, too uptown for me.Too many instruments, too bluesy.
Give me Wilf Carter, Hank Snow, Jim Reeves. Old Hank Snow could pick them all under the table.

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: GUEST,PeteG
Date: 21 Dec 10 - 05:46 AM

Kendall,

This was a four part series, the first part "down from the mountain" is actually parts 19 to 26 on Scott's link above. This looks at old-time, bluegrass, Jimmy Rodgers and Carter Family.

Thanks to Scott for posting the link as I've been looking for part one of this series for years!

Incidentally, I love Hank Williams probably because of his band and the bluesiness. Different strokes for different folks....

Cheers,

Pete.

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: kendall
Date: 21 Dec 10 - 06:14 AM

I didn't know this wasn't the first installment.
Hank Williams had, in my opinion, the worst steel guitar player in all of country music.

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 21 Dec 10 - 08:10 AM

take it you're not in the UK as that prog was shown some years ago, excellent it was indeed. And not so long ago the BBC did indeed do an even better series on British Folk Music, I think it might have been called Folk Brittania, warrants a repeat in my opinion but the BBC rarely repeat anything worthwhile

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: kendall
Date: 21 Dec 10 - 08:14 AM

I'd like to see the history of British folk music. There must be piles of it!

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: GUEST,re: Folk Britannia
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 07:11 AM

'Folk Brittania' et al - all available from TheBox.bz

Jazz Britannia - Series (2005) [TVRip (XviD)]

Folk Britannia at the Barbican (24-2-2006) - Which Side Are You On [TVRip (mpeg4)]

Daughters of Albion - Folk Britannia at the Barbican 2 (3rd February 2006) [PDTV [XviD]

Pop Britannia (2008) [WS.PDTV(XviD)]

Later With Jools Holland - Folk Britannia (18th Feb 2006) (TVRip Xvid)]

Folk Britannia (2006) [ TVRip (XviD) ]

Folk At The BBC Parts 1 & 2 (3 & 10 February 2006)[TVRip(XviD)]

Dance Britannia - Parts 1-3 (27-29 December 2007)[WS.PDTV(XviD)]

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 08:07 AM

Country music to me was the Hank Wangford Band 1980-84 - country's answer to country!!!

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Dec 10 - 11:11 AM

the amount of time spent on old timey in these programmes is laughable.
Earl Scruggs[of all people] explaining briefly that it was a one finger banjo style, nothing about bascam lunsford or up picking as against frailing, or players like string bean., or round peak banjo style

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Singing Referee
Date: 24 Dec 10 - 12:00 PM

Can't get part 22 in the UK. Youtube says "Channel 4" has blocked it.

Any one out there got a copy they'd be prepared to email me. 10MB I think!

Please PM me for email address if so.

Thanks,

Steve

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Singing Referee
Date: 27 Dec 10 - 07:13 AM

No one got it then?

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: ChrisJBrady
Date: 28 Dec 10 - 06:29 AM

Channel 4 blocks any IP/ISDN (whatever) address that is not UK-based. Try using ExpatShield.com - this sets up a VPN (Google this) which you can use to access BBC iPlayer, etc. It might work.

or download said prog. from TheBox.bz - its all there and more.

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: ChrisJBrady
Date: 28 Dec 10 - 07:04 AM

BBC TWO travels the Lost Highway and uncovers the story of country music on a journey to the heart of America and the music that has come to define it.

From the makers of the award-winning series Dancing in the Street and Walk On By comes another major heritage music series charting the history of country music in the words of its greatest performers and producers, musicians and songwriters.

2003 sees the 50th anniversary of the death of Hank Williams, the most iconic figure in country and one of the most revered songwriters of all time.

And country is currently enjoying a remarkable renaissance fuelled by the international success of the multi-million selling soundtrack to the Coen Brothers movie O Brother Where Art Thou.

Part 1 Down From The Mountain

The story of the current bluegrass revival and how the music of a remote, rural region of America came to represent the "authentic" experience of the whole nation.

When George Clooney made his way into a makeshift recording studio in the movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou he was re-living a turning point in musical history.

Before the first recordings were made country music was trapped in the isolated Appalachian Mountains.

Part 2 The Road To Nashville

This is the story of Hank Williams, country music's greatest songwriter whose hard-drinking honky tonk lifestyle led to a rock 'n' roll style death aged just 29 in 1953.

It's also the story of how Nashville would end up squandering the legacy of its greatest star - they thought he was just a drunk hill-billy performer - just as surely ashe had squandered his own life.

The Birth of Honky Tonk: Honky-tonk music came out of the inter-war Texas oil-fields where a rough and ready style of entertainment had developed in beer-joints and roadside bars - known locally as honky tonks - to cater for the migrant oil-riggers.

Part 3 Beyond Nashville

Country worships cowboy pride - those who have gone their own way and taken chances.There's a maverick streak, an independent spirit in the music that re-surfaces whenever country becomes too mainstream or too commercial for its own good.

This is the story of the outsiders from all over America who again and again have rejuvenated country by going beyond Nashville - from the Bakersfield Sound of the 1950s through to the outlaw movement of the 1970s to alt. country today.

Part 4 Sweethearts of the Rodeo

Women were once the bit players in Nashville, relegated to the role of merely accompanying male performers, but now they dominate the country music industry.

This is the story of how the women of country successfully fought for control of their identity,their songs and ultimately the future of the music itself.

- brief synopsis taken from BBC website

http://www.bbc.co.uk/print/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/02_february/06/lost_highway.shtml

Subject: RE: History of Country Music: BBC2
From: Singing Referee
Date: 29 Dec 10 - 05:19 AM

Thanks CJB, I'll give that a try.