Well the masses of BBC4 viewers that is. You may have noticed there’s a country thing going on at the moment at the BBC, partly because of the C2C music festival taking place in London this weekend (which is slightly beyond the remit of this site, it’s all a bit big hat). Anyway next Friday comedian Rich Hall is doing a programme about the roots of country music. He journeys from Tennessee to Texas to look at the movements and artists that don’t get as much notoriety but have helped shape the genre over the years.
“With the help of prominent performers and producers including Michael Martin Murphey, Robbie Fulks and Ray Benson, Rich explores the early origins of country music in Nashville and Austin. He visits the rustic studios where this much-loved sound was born and discovers how the genre has reinvented itself with influences from bluegrass, western swing and americana. Rich also explores how the music industries differ between these two cities and how they each generated their own distinct twist on the genre, from cosmic country and redneck country to the outlaw artists of the 1970s. Through Working Dog, a three-minute self-penned soap opera about a collie dog, Rich illustrates how different styles can change.”
You can catch it on BBC4 next Friday at 21.00 and then on iPlayer after that. And in the meantime, here’s Rich on the US election, weeks before the nightmare unfolded.
