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036 SEPTEMBER 2019 MEN’S JOURNAL
Notebook TELEVISION
issues in the country at large. America
has a race problem, period. The f ilm
makes the point, though, that country
music and the blues aren’t as segregated
as they might seem. DeFord Bailey, an
African-American harmonica player,
was among the f irst [Grand Ole] Opry
members, and Hank Williams and
Johnny Cash each had an African-
American mentor. On the f lip side,
when Ray Charles got creative control
of his music, he cut a country record
f irst. I have a neon sign in my editing
room that says, “It’s complicated,” and
with country music, there was certainly
a lot of complexity to explore.
The film resembles your past work. Do you
ever feel an urge to experiment?
I can point you to a room of Cézanne
paintings, and you’ll go, “Wow, they
all look similar!” You’ll never say,
“Cézanne, do you worry about this?”
There’s no formula for making a f ilm;
what you’re referring to is style, and
mine works because it’s authentic to
me. I long ago gave up being different
for different’s sake.
Do you ever think about your legacy when
making a film?
Never. It’s just about telling a good
story, to free people from their assump-
tions about a subject. For instance, the
lyrics to “I’m So Lonesome I Could
Cry,” by Hank Williams, might seem
simple on the surface, yet it’s also one of
the most complex songs in the history
of recorded music. If you don’t come
away from the f ilm believing that, I
can’t help you. Q
Nelson. Still, whenever my team and I
start making a f ilm, you always think
you know something about the sub-
ject. But as you dive in, you realize
you know nothing. That was certainly
the case with this f ilm. I thought The
Vietnam War [2017] was the most
complicated thing I’d ever done. But
Country Music is a Russian novel, with
dozens of characters and lots of literal
and metaphorical families.
What was something you didn’t know?
I was unaware of the level of poverty
Dolly Parton, for one, had to escape.
Her father paid the doctor who deliv-
ered her with a sack of cornmeal in
lieu of cash. She was the f irst real
breadwinner in her family. I count it as
one of the great privileges of my career
that I got to interview her. I also found
it interesting that Garth Brooks once
signed autographs for more than 20
hours at a festival. In country music,
the fans and musicians’ relationship is
unlike that in any other genre.
The film includes a section on Charley
Pride. Two other country singers of color,
Kane Brown and Jimmy Allen, had big hits
this year, but they’re among the few since
Pride’s ’ 7 0s heyday to do so. Why is that?
Many of the issues in country music are
EN BURNS GOES LONG.
Since releasing his f irst
major documentary, in 1981,
the 66-year-old f ilmmaker
has become renowned for
his sprawling, multipart epics about big,
all-American subjects—baseball, jazz, the
Vietnam War. His latest, Country Music
(9/15 on PBS), is no exception, tracing the
rise of the genre from hillbilly music in
the 1920s to Garth Brooks’ arena-f illing
peak seven decades later. Men’s Journal
caught up with Burns by phone from his
home in New Hampshire.
Are you a longtime country-music fan?
I grew up on R&B and rock & roll. But
in the late ’60s, I worked at a record
store in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where
I started listening to a lot of Loretta
Lynn, Merle Haggard, and Willie
The acclaimed documentarian
Ken Burns returns with a new
film about the churchgoers,
outsiders, and outlaws who
shaped country music.
by J.R. SULLIVAN
Honky-
Tonk
Heroes
Clockwise from left: Johnny Cash in
California, 1960; Dolly Parton (left),
producer and writer Dayton Duncan, and
Ken Burns; Loretta Lynn, 1965.
K