10 things we learned from the first part – Rolling Stone

"There was a saying that said," The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll. "I always say," Yes, and I think dad was a hill. "It's Bobby Braddock, writer of" The Country Music Hall of Fame, "songs of which" He stopped loving it today, "about the genesis of rock music. argue that its birth, towards the end of the first half of the 20th century, was influenced as much by the country music as by the blues.

Related: 100 greatest country artists of all time

Braddock is just one of the many contributors who are expected to attend Ken Burns' conference Country musicwhich will air on Sunday, September 15th on PBS. Finding the roots of the country back to Africa, where banjo was invented for the first time, as well as the violin music of European immigrants settled in the Appalachian Mountains, Episodes 1 to 4 include appearances of Dolly Parton Marty Stuart, Rhiannon Giddens and Ketch Secor of the Old Crow Medicine Show, as musicians and country specialists, whose author Alice Randall and historian Bill C. Malone, provides historical context and details colorful to literally accompany hundreds of still and animated images on the screen.

Told by actor Peter Coyote, the first four episodes of the film, which is the subject of exhaustive research and intense intensity, unfold until Wednesday, the second part beginning a week later, September 22nd. Here are 10 things we learned from the first week.

Fiddlin 'John Carson, one of the first major stars of country music, has performed in the South during some controversial events.
John Carson was a 50-year-old factory worker in Atlanta in the early 1920s and earned $ 10 a week. Passionate about music since his grandfather played him the violin at the age of 10, he performs as Fiddlin's John Carson, playing with part-time musicians during square dances, Confederate veterans' shops and meetings – as well as political events, including Ku Klux Klan Meetings and a gathering of communist organizers. He would soon start playing regularly on WSB, the first radio station in the South, in Atlanta.

African-American musician Lesley Riddle played a pivotal role in developing country music by helping the Carter family "sing songs".
Carter The Carter family's patriarch, P. Carter, collected songs from the Appalachian Hills and Dutch with the invaluable help of Riddle, who had an easy-to-remember melody and music, while Carter it's focused on lyrics and stories. A.P.'s sister-in-law, Maybelle, invented a guitar playing style called "Carter scratch," which directly influenced rock guitarist Duane Allman. When their records began to sell, A.P.'s wife, singer Sara Carter, and Maybelle both bought motorbikes with their royalty check, while A.P. bought land.

Jimmie Rodgers collaborated with a jazz legend and was a fan of one of the most famous outlaws of the 1930s.
Jimmie Rodgers, nicknamed "Brakeman singer" for his work on the railroad, is considered the father of country music. He often sent his pay checks to Black Narcissus, a perfume he had discovered in New Orleans and that he smelled masked by the overwhelming smell of railway fumes. Rodgers collaborated with trumpet player and singer Louis Armstrong and his wife, pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong, who added jazz licks to the recording of "Blue Yodel No. 9" by Rodgers. Bonnie Parker spent some of the stolen money on each Rodgers record that she could find.

Gene Autry, cowboy singer and actor, who would sell millions of records with "Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer", has already made an appearance in a musical western themed science fiction.
In 1935, Autry landed his first lead role playing himself The ghost empire, a 12-episode series centered on Murania, an ancient underground civilization discovered under the Autry ranch. Autry's popularity would soon be eclipsed by that of cowboy singing star Leonard Slye, better known as Roy Rogers. Rogers would become the only member of the Hall of Fame for country music dedicated twice – solo and as one of the Pioneer Sons.

After a shaky start, Roy Acuff became the biggest draw of the Grand Ole Opry. Hank Williams said he could beat God.
Acuff and his group, who were then called Crazy Tennesseans, had auditioned on the Opry in the late '30s, while the show was still taking place at the Dixie Tabernacle. By changing the name of his group to the Smoky Mountain Boys, he quickly became the most popular act of the Opry. Acuff, who has often balanced his violin bow and sometimes even his violin at the end of his nose, was the main attraction of the half-hour Opry broadcast broadcast nationally by NBC Radio in Montreal. from 1939. "To attract power in the South, it was Roy Acuff, then God," said Hank Williams later.

Life The magazine went to Virginia to photograph the Carter family for a cover story that never happened.
In November 1941, Life was preparing a long story about the growing popularity of country music. The Carter family members were photographed at home and the young June Carter kept in memory all the used light bulbs from the photographer's camera. The story was however removed from the cover as a result of the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7 and the beginning of World War II. Several stars of the country would temporarily give up their career to enlist in the armed forces.

Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys once had a young promoter named Willie Nelson.
Willie Nelson, a Texas teenager, promoted a local show from Wills and his group. The Western swing group, which was one of the first to controversially present percussion and trumpets on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry (with Pee Wee King's band), was shot in space in 1969 , when astronaut Pete Conrad took a tape from the "New San Antonio Rose" group aboard Apollo 12, airing the song around the world, while Nelson wrote the most popular title of all time , entitled "Crazy", which originally called "Stupid".

The rise of honky-tonk music has also popularized the most brilliant stage costumes.
Honky-tonk music was a kind of lighter version of Western swing, with electrified instruments and drums, but fewer members taking the place on the stage. Flamboyant stage outfits and a more elaborate staging soon followed the inspired rhythm of boogie-woogie, which preceded rock & roll. The Maddox Brothers and Rose, four brothers and their sister from Alabama, who emigrated to the west during the Great Depression and lived for a time in a concrete culvert in Oakland, were one of the most successful to take full advantage of it. The Hollywood tailor made them clothes, while Nudie Cohn, the biggest rival of Turk, made rhinestone suits that Little Jimmy Dickens was the first to wear on the Opry.

A commemorative concert by Jimmie Rodgers in Mississippi has led to several country music related reconciliations.
In May 1953, five months after the death of Hank Williams, the very first Jimmie Rodgers Day was held in Meridian in the honor of Rodgers on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his death. The event drew more than 30,000 people and would mark the first time in 10 years that the original Carter family members would perform together, as at that time, A.P. and Sara Carter had divorced. The event also ended, at least for the day, a long quarrel between Bill Monroe and his brother, Charlie, who had split as a duo in 1938.

Songwriters Boudleaux and Felice Bryant thanked producer-musician Chet Atkins for preserving some of their song ideas.
The married couple who wrote classics such as "Rocky Top", "Love Hurts" and several of Everly Brothers greatest hits, including "Wake Up Little Susie", "Bye Bye Love" and "Devoted to You" Were incredibly prolific. . One day, when 14 ideas of the song of Boudleaux had been lost after the disappearance of his rain coat containing the paper containing these ideas, Atkins bought him a leather bound book in which he could write the lyrics. To date, more than 900 songs from Bryants have been recorded and have sold over 500 million copies worldwide.