Country Music, Episode 8

Don't Get Above Your Raisin' (1984-1996)

Country music is very much a living thing, and none of the episodes since the first one have tried to cover a period longer than 12 years. Still, 1996 is an odd place to end the story, with a three minute slide show standing in for the last quarter century, years in which there have been some significant developments. The blacklisting of the Dixie Chicks alone seems hugely important - they were the most popular country act in the world when it happened. One would also have thought that the collapse of the entire record industry might have some ramifications. Ending where he does, Burns gets to show country music as bigger and more alive than ever, as people like Garth Brooks move units in quantities no one had dreamed possible. It was just a mirage, of course. It was the great CD boom, the rising tide that lifted all the boats, until the internet put an end to it all in the years after 1999. Burns does note the disappearance of independent radio, as the corporations and the bottom lines take charge. In years to come this would lead to the complete disappearance of women from country radio, which is also pretty significant, but also outside the series' purview.

Country music has always been wildly sentimental, of course. The fact that it has always been willing to go to a point where it is just shamelessly corny is what has always kept an old rocker like myself at arm's length. Burns piles on the sentiment with a shovel in his closing episode. I suppose that's partially because that's where country music would want him to go - but it's also because he doesn't really have any major new artists to hang build his conclusion around. That's just the luck of the draw, but it left Burns with people like Vince Gill, Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire. They all have their virtues, and they're all nice people - but none of them are artists of the stature of Merle Haggard or Dolly Parton. The fact that they're all nice people probably should have been a clue - artistic greatness and overall niceness don't go hand in hand all that often. I mean, Dolly Parton really is a sweetheart, but she also wasn't going to let anything get in the way of fulfilling her ambitions.

The 21st century would see Taylor Swift, who certainly started out as a country singer, become the world's biggest pop star. In time Swift would show herself to be just as ambitious as Dolly and maybe even as talented, albeit in a completely different way. We would see what can only be described as an explosion of enormously talented women making music rooted in country. Some truly major artists, more than worthy of carrying Hank Williams' hat, are among them. I personally nominate Miranda Lambert. The music is even more alive today than Burns lets on. But country music has always been obsessed with what's come before, and the series ends with a shot of Maybelle Carter. But that's OK, too. She surely deserves it.