Los Angeles Times: In 2019, country music has a raging identity crisis. For Ken Burns, that’s a 100-year-old story
Yep, they’re country. Clockwise from top left: Loretta Lynn, Lil Nas X, Jimmie Rodgers and Ray Charles. (Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images (Lynn); Matt Winkelmeyer / Getty Images (Lil Nas X); BMI / Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images (Rodgers); Express Newspapers / Getty Images (Charles).)
SEP. 4, 2019
On the surface, rapper Lil Nas X’s record-setting smash “Old Town Road” seems to have little connection with the forthcoming multipart film documentary “Ken Burns’ Country Music.”
One is a offhandedly radical merging of two styles of music — hip-hop and country — that historically have occupied distant ends of the musical spectrum; the other is a measured, exhaustively researched examination of nearly a century of American music and cultural history.
The common element, however, is that both hone in on and illuminate — without definitively answering — the same question: What is “country music”? [READ MORE]
