America’s Music: The Roots of Country
Robert Oermann, the writer of America’s Music: The Roots of Country, a six-hour series that will be reshown in its entirety this Saturday on cable network TBS from 11 AM to 5 PM, doesn’t exactly sail through the dilemmas of scope and prejudice, but he doesn’t entirely stumble over them either. He tries to dole out coverage based on merit and significance. Ultimately, though, he’s bit off more than he can chew, so the results are unsatisfying. If the folk revival of the 1950s and ’60s–which was resurrecting music that Nashville had long understood–gets an entire hour, surely Hank Williams shouldn’t be relegated to a fraction of one episode on the “Honky Tonk Kings and Queens.” And where’s Conway Twitty? Twitty’s talent might be questionable, but he has the most number ones in country history, and few would disagree that he’s better than Brenda Lee and Eddy Arnold, who are all over this production.
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There are some spots with genuine insight. Profiles of Ernest Tubb and Patsy Cline are done particularly well. Tubb’s credited with popularizing the electric guitar in country. He helped Cline, Hank Williams, and Loretta Lynn get on to the Grand Ole Opry, and generally comes off as a nurturing presence. We learn that when Tubb was on his deathbed he gave Willie Nelson a call to see if there were any jobs for members of his out-of-work band. We also get to see Tubb picking his classic “I’m Walking the Floor Over You.”
