Country Music by Ken Burns

Ken Burns & Country Music in the Bay Area

In July 2019, KQED presented a series of events across the Bay Area to celebrate the great American documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and the launch of his eight-part PBS series Country Music.

From its deep and tangled roots in ballads, blues, and hymns performed in small settings, to its worldwide popularity, country music evolved over the course of the 20th century to become America’s music. Featuring the biographies of country’s fascinating trailblazers — the Carter Family, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and many more — as well as the times in which they lived, Burns’s documentary tells unforgettable stories of the hardships and joys shared by musical legends and everyday people alike.

At a preview screening at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts Theater, Burns and his collaborators joined KQED host Mina Kim onstage for a conversation about making the film and telling the story of this uniquely American musical art form.

Earlier that day, they visited San Quentin State Prison, where the legendary Johnny Cash shared a fateful encounter with a young Merle Haggard that would transform country music’s legacy.

KQED continued our celebration of the series with What Makes a Country Classic? At this concert and live storytelling event, Bay Area country band Red Meat performed a rollicking lesson in California’s distinctive musical influences, from Hollywood’s singing cowboys, to the Western honkytonks that gave birth to the Bakersfield Sound