American Epic
Go inside one of the greatest-ever untold stories: how the ordinary people of America were given the opportunity to make records for the first time. This four-part film, narrated by Robert Redford, melds space, time and technology to reveal the raw roots of American music. Tracing the odyssey of the first recording teams, from the gritty streets of Memphis to the Texas plains and the islands of Hawaii, American Epic captures the breathtaking variety and excitement of their discoveries.
- 2015-2017
- 1 season
- PBS
- Documentary, Music
- TV-14
Go inside one of the greatest-ever untold stories: how the ordinary people of America were given the opportunity to make records for the first time. This four-part film, narrated by Robert Redford, melds space, time and technology to reveal the raw roots of American music. Tracing the odyssey of the first recording teams, from the gritty streets of Memphis to the Texas plains and the islands of Hawaii, American Epic captures the breathtaking variety and excitement of their discoveries.
Season 1 Episode Guide
4 Episodes 2016 - 2017
Episode 1
The Big Bang
Tue, May 16, 2017 57 mins
At the height of the Roaring Twenties, music scouts armed with cutting-edge recording technology set out across America to capture the breadth of American music and discover the artists that would shape our world. The recordings they made of all the ethnic groups of America democratized the nation and gave a voice to everyone. It was the first time America heard itself. As told by music pioneers, their families and eyewitnesses, we travel back in time to the "Big Bang" of modern popular music with the Carter Family, Will Shade and the Memphis Jug Band.
Episode 2
Blood and Soil
Tue, May 23, 2017 57 mins
From the sanctified shout of the gospel church to the coal mines of West Virginia to the cotton fields of Mississippi, music provided relief from tough lives and hard times. New rhythms were born in the echoes of stomping feet, the bite of pick-axes and the ambling gait of tired mules. Almost a century later, the quest for singers remembered only as vague names on battered shellac discs brings those stories back to life.
Episode 3
Out of the Many, the One
Tue, May 30, 2017 87 mins
Exotic cultures spanning America are captured on record for the first time-inventing new instruments and new cultural identities as disparate voices harmonize in a musical melting pot. The myriad threads of America's musical tapestry include Hopi priests traveling to Washington to defend their sacred snake dance; an 11-year-old Hawaiian boy who invents the steel guitar; a teenage Tejana shaking the border with a ferocious feminist tango learned from a gum wrapper; the fightingest frères on the bayou turning a lament for a pretty blonde into the Cajun national anthem; and a gentle Delta farmer who sings a nostalgic song of his hometown and inspires the greatest rediscovery of the '60s folk revival.
Episode 4
The American Epic Sessions
Tue, Jun 6, 2017 140 mins
Using the only 1920's era recording device in existence, Jack White and T Bone Burnett produce a series of recording sessions in tribute to the mostly unknown artists celebrated in the three prior episodes of this PBS documentary series.