This one is for John Donabie and everyone else who’s interested in the origins of modern music.
 
On Tuesday, May 16th, PBS in the U.S. (Buffalo’s WNED-TV Channel 17 for most here) is showing “American Epic,” the story of not only early pioneer musicians but the technology used to record them.
 
The three-part documentary is produced and narrated by Robert Redford, and includes input from people like T. Bone Burnett and Jack White of the White Stripes. It includes everything from the 11-year-old Hawaiian who accidentally invented the steel guitar, striking coal miners and what the show bumpf describes as “a gentle Delta farmer who sings a nostalgic song of his hometown and inspires the greatest rediscovery of the ’60s folk revival.”
 
In addition to all that, there’s a coda to the show, a sort of unofficial part 4, called “Sessions.” In this final episode, engineers gathered parts from the few surviving examples of the portable equipment used to record all these historic examples and then assembles modern musicians like Taj Mahal, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Elton John to make a record using the jerry-rigged machine.
 
And according to the doc’s official website, it wasn’t easy. “The system consists of a single microphone, a towering six-foot amplifier rack, and a live record-cutting lathe, powered by a weight-driven pulley system of clockwork gears. The musicians have roughly three minutes to record their song direct to disc before the weight hits the floor. In the 1920s, they called this “catching lightning in a bottle.” All the musical performances in this film are live. The audio you hear is taken directly from the discs they were recorded to, with no editing or enhancements.”
 
It airs Tuesdays at 9 PM, with a repeat at 1 AM on Thursday mornings.
 
Episode by episode

American Epic: Sessions

Last edited by RadioActive (May 14, 2017 10:19 am)