CANR
WORK TITLE: COUNTRY MUSIC
WORK NOTES:
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BIRTHDATE:
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COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME: CANR 276
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayton_Duncan http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/about-the-filmmakers/dayton-duncan http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf/2013/12/cool_art_book_of_the_week_seed.html
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born September 3, 1949, in Indianola, IA; son of Dudley J. and Caroline Emily Duncan; married Dianne Kearns (a journalist), August 24, 1986; children: two.
EDUCATION:University of Pennsylvania, B.A., 1971.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Producer and collaborator with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. Keene Sentinel, Keene, NH, reporter, columnist, and editorial writer, 1973-78; chief of staff to the governor of New Hampshire in Concord, 1979-83; deputy press secretary for Walter Mondale for President campaign, Washington, DC, 1983-84; press secretary for Michael Dukakis for President campaign, 1988. Former fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy.
AWARDS:William C. Everhart Award, 2009. Honorary doctorates from Franklin Pierce College and Drake University; Christopher Award and Telly Award for Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip.
WRITINGS
Contributor to periodicals, including Boston Globe, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Old Farmer’s Almanac, and American Heritage. Duncan has also collaborated with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns as a consultant on The Civil War, Baseball, and Jazz. He is the writer or cowriter and producer of documentaries Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, Mark Twain, Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip, and Country Music.
SIDELIGHTS
Dayton Duncan has written several books about one of his most passionate interests, the American West. His works on the subject include Out West: An American Journey, Miles from Nowhere: Tales from America’s Contemporary Frontier, and Seed of the Future: Yosemite and the Evolution of the National Park Idea. Duncan is probably best known for his collaborative work with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. The two have worked together on a two-hour biography of Mark Twain, a documentary illustrating the journey of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and documentaries on the national parks, the Dust Bowl, and country music
Out West, Duncan’s first published book, is the story of the author’s retracing of “the historic Lewis and Clark trail along the Missouri River from St. Louis, Missouri, to the river’s source in the Rocky Mountains, over the mountains in Idaho, then along the Snake and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean,” as Duncan told CA. He continued: “As I recount my own experiences—the people I meet, the small towns I visit, the landscape I encounter—I also retell the story of the expedition of the first American citizens to cross the continent, from 1804 to 1806. The book is a mixture of travelogue and history, of glorying in the open road and explaining the journey of America as the nation moved west.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer noted of this debut work, “This is an off-beat story that successfully combines history, travel and personal adventure.”
Miles from Nowhere, a later book by Duncan, describes the author’s further travels in little-populated regions of the United States. He found that in these remote regions, despite the presence of such modern conveniences as the satellite dishes and VCRs, life is essentially the same as it was long ago, and that this is somehow vital to the well-being of the country. Tim McCarthy noted in National Catholic Reporter: “You come away from Miles from Nowhere feeling that if ever that frontier, that primal presence in our national psyche, is truly gone from our spirit, some of our deepest, most radical heritage will die with it and it will mean something fundamentally different to be an American.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer advised that “Duncan is no questing William Least Heat Moon or quirky Ian Frazier, but he ably melds history and reportage.”
In 2014, Duncan published Seed of the Future, a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the founding of Yosemite National Park. Duncan traces what became the inspiration for the founding of a system of national parks to the Yosemite Grant Act of 1864, when Abraham Lincoln was convinced by preservationists to save this wilderness region. Duncan takes the history forward to the work of naturalist John Muir and the conservationist president Theodore Roosevelt. The author also discusses some of Yosemite’s most famous landmarks, such as Mariposa Grove and El Capitan. Writing in Booklist, Carl Hays observed: “Duncan’s work is a fitting and timely tribute both to Yosemite’s enduring natural beauty and the wisdom of America’s national park program.”
Duncan’s collaboration with Ken Burns helped to bring to life Burns’s documentaries about the explorers Lewis and Clark and the American humorist Mark Twain, and they also resulted in books linked to those television films. Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery offers an illustrated account of the expedition, which lasted from 1804 to 1806, ordered by Thomas Jefferson and conducted by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The men and their companions worked their way west from St. Louis to the Pacific coast. In his script and the book, Duncan “tells the story of that epic journey in a straightforward manner,” reported Stephen H. Peters in Library Journal. Peters noted that “The challenge in both film and book is to tell a familiar tale in a new way. The authors meet that challenge.” Booklist reviewer Gilbert Taylor called it “the last word in Lewis and Clark histories.” Duncan’s work on Burns’s biography of Twain was equally well received. Recommending the companion volume, Mark Twain, a Publishers Weekly reviewer stated that it “should appeal to a vast potential readership eager to learn more about this manic, profound, daft and provocative mad genius of American culture.”
In 2009, Duncan again collaborated with Burns on five-part, twelve-hour documentary that premiered on PBS in 2009, which led to publication of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea: An Illustrated History. The documentary and the book detail the history of the national park system, looking at the preservationist visionaries such as Theodore Roosevelt, Horace Albright, and Stephen Mather in securing such a system of protected natural areas. There are also plentiful interviews with park system administrators and writers. The work additionally reproduces historic photographs. Writing in Xpress Reviews, Patricia Ann Owens noted of the work: “The essays and photos eloquently argue that the national parks are America’s best idea and that they bring out our best selves. Outstanding!” Similarly, Choice reviewer Y. F. Leung found this to be a “magnificent companion to the documentary film series bearing the same title.”
Duncan and Burns wrote The Dust Bowl: An Illustrated History, another spin-off volume from one of Burns’s documentaries. Featuring never-before-seen photographs, first-person accounts, and oral histories, the book expands on the history of the Dust Bowl and the factors that turned the Great Plains from grassland to dust storm. The usually dry area experienced a rare verdant period that was exploited by farmers who plowed millions of acres and left the drying soil exposed. A drought in the early 1930s, paired with a windstorm, ushered in the Dust Bowl era. Critics lauded the volume, and Booklist contributor Donna Seaman called The Dust Bowl “a resounding chronicle of why we must preserve Earth’s life-sustaining ecosystems.” Chloe Schama, writing in the Smithsonian, was also impressed, describing the book as “masterful” and asserting: “Stormy and dark, this reads like a family scrapbook you might banish to the far corners of the attic.” As Duncan noted in a Think Progress Web site interview with Alyssa Rosenberg, “we’ve got lots of photographs in … our companion book that have never been published before—that people brought to us, and also from the historical societies that might have them in these folders. A couple of the ones of the storm descending on the town of Elkhart, Kansas, one of it descending over Hooker, Oklahoma, nobody’s ever seen those before.”
Country Music: An Illustrated History, is a further adaptation of a Burns’ documentary, this time an eight-part, sixteen-hour history of this musical form from its roots in a 1927 radio performance by Jimmie Rogers, through the Carter Family and Ernest Tubbs, to the Nashville sounds of the 1960s, the outlier music of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, to the work of Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Garth Brooks, and Reba McEntire. The documentary and book also feature performers of the Grand Ole Opry, and the lives of further major country musicians such as Patsy Cline and Hank Williams. A Kirkus Reviews critic noted: “Lucid, jam-packed, richly illustrated companion to the Ken Burns documentary series. … Country music is America’s music–which is to say, music from every culture and ethnicity. An essential guide.” Similarly a Publishers Weekly contributor concluded: “Duncan’s and Burns’s lavishly illustrated and cinematic narrative will stand as the definitive history of the genre.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, April 1, 1993, Roland Wulbert, review of Miles from Nowhere: Tales from America’s Contemporary Frontier, p. 1403; August, 1996, Hazel Rochman, review of The West: An Illustrated History for Children and People of the West, p. 1897; August, 1997, Gilbert Taylor, review of Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, p. 1843; February 15, 2004, Gilbert Taylor, “Lewis and Clark: Road Fever,” p. 1022; October 1, 2012, Donna Seaman, review of The Dust Bowl: An Illustrated History, p. 13; November 1, 2013, Carl Hays, review of Seed of the Future: Yosemite and the Evolution of the National Park Idea, p. 8.
Book Report, November-December, 1993, Jeri Drew, review of Miles from Nowhere, p. 62.
Choice, April, 2010, Y. F. Leung, review of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea: An Illustrated History, p. 1548.
Daily Variety, November 16, 2012, Brian Lowry, review of The Dust Bowl, p. 14.
Digital Video, December, 2012, Joy Zaccaria, “Spotlight: Ken Burns, Director, The Dust Bowl,” p. 16.
Hollywood Reporter, December, 1999, Harry W. Fritz, review of Lewis & Clark, p. 1417; October 6, 2003, Barry Garron, review of Horatio’s Drive (television program), p. 14.
Journal of American History, December, 1999, Harry W. Fritz, review of Lewis & Clark, p. 1417.
Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2001, review of Mark Twain, p. 1346; July 1, 2019, review of Country Music: An Illustrated History.
Library Journal, April 15, 1987, Roger W. Fromm, review of Out West: An American Journey, p. 82; December, 1990, Thomas H. Ferrell, review of Grass Roots: One Year in the Life of the New Hampshire Presidential Primary, p. 141; April 1, 1993, Melinda Stivers Leach, review of Miles from Nowhere, p. 120; October 1, 1997, Stephen H. Peters, review of Lewis & Clark, p. 98; March 1, 2004, Margaret Atwater-Singer, review of Scenes of Visionary Enchantment: Reflections on Lewis and Clark, p. 90.
Mother Earth News, November-December, 1988, review of Out West, p. 118.
National Catholic Reporter, July 30, 1993, Tim McCarthy, review of Miles from Nowhere, p. 18.
New Yorker, August 10, 1987, review of Out West, p. 79.
New York Times Book Review, May 31, 1987, Eric Newby, review of Out West, p. 48.
Parks & Recreation, January, 2010, “Hartzog Award Winners,” p. 58.
Publishers Weekly, March 6, 1987, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Out West, p. 100; December 14, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Grass Roots, p. 60; March 29, 1993, review of Miles from Nowhere, p. 41; October 8, 2001, review of Mark Twain, p. 57; June 16, 2003, review of Horatio’s Drive, p. 61.
School Library Journal, October, 1996, George Gleason, review of People of the West and The West, p. 154; June, 2002, Claudia Moore, review of Mark Twain, p. 175.
Smithsonian, October, 2012, Chloe Schama, review of The Dust Bowl, p. 81.
U.S. News & World Report, July 6, 1987, Alvin P. Sanoff, interview with Dayton Duncan, p. 70.
Variety, November 3, 1997, Ray Richmond, review of Lewis & Clark (television program), p. 32.
Xpress Reviews, October 9, 2009, Patricia Ann Owens, review of The National Parks.
Yankee, May, 1991, Geoffrey Elan, review of Grass Roots, p. 12.
ONLINE
BoondocksNet.com, http://www.boondocksnet.com/ (June 20, 2003), Jim Zwick, interview with Dayton Duncan.
Deadline, https://deadline.com/ (February 1, 2019), Lisa de Moraes, “Dayton Duncan Describes Ken Burns Process In Making ‘Country Music’.”
Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/ (August 15, 2019), “Dayton Duncan.”
Publishers Weekly, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ May 1, 1987, review of Out West: An American Journey; (July 24, 2019), review of Country Music.
Think Progress, http://thinkprogress.org/ (November 16, 2012), Alyssa Rosenberg, author interview.
Variety, https://variety.com/ (August 15, 2019), Chris Willman, “Ken Burns’ ‘Country Music’ Previewed by Producers, With PBS Airing Set for September.”
Dayton Duncan, writer and producer of The National Parks, is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker. His nine other books include, with Ken Burns, Horatio's Drive and Lewis & Clark. He has collaborated on all of Ken Burns's films for twenty years as a writer, producer, and consultant. He lives in Walpole, New Hampshire.
DAYTON DUNCAN, writer and producer of Country Music, is the author of twelve other books, including Out West: An American Journey Along the Lewis and Clark Trail, in which he retraced the historic route of the expedition. He has worked with Ken Burns as a writer and producer of documentary films for nearly thirty years.
Dayton Duncan
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Dayton Duncan at the 2009 Texas Book Festival.
Dayton Duncan (born September 3, 1949) is the writer and co-producer of The National Parks: America's Best Idea documentary produced by Ken Burns, and has also been involved for many years with other series directed by Burns including The Civil War, Horatio's Drive, Baseball and Jazz. For the 12-hour series The West about the history of the American West, broadcast in 1996, Duncan was the co-writer and consulting producer. It won the Erik Barnouw Award from the Organization of American Historians.
He is the writer and producer of Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, a four-hour documentary broadcast in November 1997. The film attained the second-highest ratings (following The Civil War) in the history of PBS and won a Western Heritage award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, and a CINE Golden Eagle, as well as many other honors. He is the co-writer and producer of Mark Twain, a four-hour film biography of the great American humorist which was broadcast on PBS in 2002. His next film with Burns was Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip, about the first transcontinental automobile trip, which he wrote and produced. It won the prestigious Christopher Award and a Telly Award.
In politics, Duncan served as Chief of Staff to New Hampshire governor Hugh Gallen; deputy national press secretary for Walter Mondale's presidential campaign in 1984; and national press secretary for Michael Dukakis's 1988 presidential campaign. President Clinton appointed him chair of the American Heritage Rivers Advisory Committee and Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt appointed him as a director of the National Park Foundation. Duncan now serves on the board of the Student Conservation Association, the National Conservation System Foundation and the New Hampshire Humanities Council.
Born and raised in Indianola, Iowa, Duncan graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971 with a degree in German literature and was also a fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy. He holds honorary doctorates from Franklin Pierce College and Drake University.
For the last thirty years he has lived in New Hampshire, where he makes his home in the small town of Walpole with his wife, Dianne, and their two children.
Filmmakers | Dayton Duncan
Dayton Duncan is an award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker.
He is the author of twelve books. Out West: A Journey Through Lewis & Clark's Americachronicles his retracing of the Lewis and Clark trail. Grass Roots: One Year in the Life of the New Hampshire Presidential Primaryis a unique look at presidential politics through the experiences of grass roots volunteers. Miles From Nowhere: In Search of the American Frontier examines the current conditions, history, and people of the most sparsely settled counties in the United States. Scenes of Visionary Enchantment: Reflections on Lewis & Clark, is a collection of essays released in conjunction with the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. Seed of the Future: Yosemite and the Evolution of the National Park Idea, is being released with the Yosemite Conservancy to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the park's initial creation as a federal grant to the state of California.
Articles of his have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, American Heritage magazine, The Old Farmer's Almanac, and many other publications.
Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, published in 1997; Mark Twain, 2001; Horatio's Drive, 2003; The National Parks: America's Best Idea,2009; and The Dust Bowl, 2012, are companion books to documentary films he wrote and produced. Two books for young readers were published in 1996: People of the West, named a Notable Children's Trade Book for 1996 by the National Council of Social Studies and the Children's Book Council, and The West: An Illustrated History for Children, which was selected by The New Yorker magazine for its "short list" of the 16 best children's books of 1996 and won a Western Heritage award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Duncan has also been involved for many years with the work of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. For THE WEST, a 12-hour series about the history of the American West, broadcast in 1996, Duncan was the co-writer and consulting producer. It won the Erik Barnouw Award from the Organization of American Historians. He was the writer and producer of LEWIS & CLARK: THE JOURNEY OF THE CORPS OF DISCOVERY, a four-hour documentary broadcast in November 1997. The film attained the second-highest ratings (following THE CIVIL WAR) in the history of PBS and won a Western Heritage award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America, and a CINE Golden Eagle, as well as many other honors. He was the co-writer and producer of MARK TWAIN, a four-hour film biography of the great American humorist. HORATIO'S DRIVE, about the first transcontinental automobile trip, which he wrote and produced, won a Christopher Award. THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA, which he wrote and produced, won two Emmy awards – for outstanding nonfiction series and outstanding writing for nonfiction programming. His most recent film with Burns was THE DUST BOWL, a two-part series about the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, broadcast in November 2012. It won a CINE Golden Eagle and a Western Heritage award; his script won a Spur Award and has been nominated for an Emmy. He is now at work with Burns as writer and producer of a major series on the history of Country Music, tentatively scheduled for release in 2019.
Duncan has also served as a consultant or consulting producing on all of Burns's other documentaries, beginning with THE CIVIL WAR and including BASEBALL, JAZZ, and THE WAR, among others.
In politics, Duncan served as chief of staff to New Hampshire Gov. Hugh Gallen; deputy national press secretary for Walter Mondale's presidential campaign in 1984; and national press secretary for Michael Dukakis's 1988 presidential campaign. President Clinton appointed him chair of the American Heritage Rivers Advisory Committee and Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt appointed him as a director of the National Park Foundation. In the spring of 2009, along with Burns, the director of the National Park Service named Duncan as an Honorary Park Ranger, an honor bestowed on fewer than 50 people in history. He has served on the boards of the Student Conservation Association and the National Conservation Lands Foundation, and is now a member of the advisory committee for the upcoming centennial of the National Park Service.
Born and raised in Indianola, Iowa, Duncan graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971 with a degree in German literature and was also a fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy. He holds honorary doctorates from Franklin Pierce University, Keene State College and Drake University. For the last forty years he has lived New Hampshire, where he makes his home in the small town of Walpole with his wife, Dianne, and their two children.
Q & A with Dayton Duncan
Dayton Duncan
Writer and producer Dayton Duncan has collaborated with Ken Burns on a host of award-winning documentary films – including The Civil War, The West, Baseball, Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, Jazz, a series of biographies of prominent American historical figures, and the recent series The War – that have been the most acclaimed and most-watched programs in public television history.
Why did you choose the parks as a film topic?
I suggested it to Ken because the parks have been an important part of my life. When I was taking my children to a number of parks in 1998, I realized how they really had been formative for me as a kid – an important part of who I became. I also realized that the parks were a perfect topic for us to deal with as filmmakers. I told Ken: "Well, like baseball, like jazz, national parks are an American invention. Its first tentative expression was made in 1864 when a President named Abraham Lincoln…" and Ken interrupted and said, "Okay, we'll do it." It took about that long to convince him that this was a topic that falls squarely in line with what we have tried to do over so many years in trying to understand who we are as Americans. It's been a great experience to learn the history of America's parks, and if you've got to get up at five in the morning to be shooting as the sun rises, you realize that you can't pick a better place to be than at a national park.
Who are the heroes of this story?
Our story is about the people who came in contact with those landscapes and were moved so deeply that they devoted themselves to decades-long crusades to try to finally give these places the protection that they needed. If you look at the story of any national park in the United States, you find a person or a small group of people who felt so passionately about it that they said this place has to be saved.
Most people think that it is Congress that makes a national park, which is true in a legal sense. But legislators are usually the last in line. It is usually an individual or a group of people actively advocating to an often indifferent Congress, saying, "This place is special, we've got to save it," and finally convincing Congress and the nation to set the land aside and preserve it. So our series is filled with heroes – people who are entirely unknown to most Americans. These were people from every conceivable background – from the rich who through their wealth and their philanthropy created parks, to the poor who, for example, gave pennies to help save the Smokies.
Every park has its hero and the stories we tell are about those people and their actions – which are really the heart and soul of this series. This is surprising given that that film focuses on these incredibly beautiful places – but the parks themselves are not the characters, they're actually the stage.
What kind of research did you do for a film like this?
Well, I have the best job in America. I don't even consider it a job. My "job" is to pick a topic that I'm interested in, convince Ken that we ought to do a film on it and then begin with what I call sort of a self-directed, post-graduate degree in that topic. So, for example, for the film about Mark Twain, I had to read everything that Mark Twain wrote and read everything written about him. And in this case, a much broader topic, I had to spend a number of years reading about the individual parks and reading about the history of the park idea. The second part of it is then to find the people who know the most about the topic and meet them and talk to them. Then we would interview them, going out on location. Our research process is also part of our filming process. So when we're in a park we might be filming before I've ever written a script. While we're on location, a Ranger who has shown us a particular viewpoint may mention some story that we were unaware of – and that works its way into the script. It becomes a process of discovery, of not trying to encompass everything and know it all to begin with and then write a script, but rather, to have a constant mix of creativity surrounding and informing our shooting, our research, the writing, the editing and everything else.
Did you go to the parks when you were a kid?
My first memory of a real trip that my family took – the only real trip my family ever took – brought us from a small town in Iowa where I grew up to the Badlands, to Yellowstone, to the Grand Tetons, to Dinosaur National Monument, to Rocky Mountain National Park.
I was nine years old and in advance of it, my mother told me that we'd be doing this trip. I spent the winter finding materials from the tourism bureaus, helping try to map the trip. And it was such a vivid memory to me I can almost take it day by day from park to park and remember what we did during that time.
I don't think at the time I realized what an important moment it was. I became somebody who was interested in history, someone who's interested in the landscape, someone who has spent a lot of his adult life traveling around the United States, trying to learn new things. And it wasn't until I took my own family – when my son was about the same age and my daughter was about the same age as my older sister – that I started making those connections. So parks weren't a constant part of my life, but they were a very big moment in my life at a particular important moment in my life.
What is it that draws us to parks?
I think the parks are a gift in many ways. They are a gift of nature to us, to this nation that was blessed with this land. They are part of who we are as Americans. We're the people who wrote the Declaration of Independence, but we're also the people who went out and inhabited – and in a way tried to conquer – this land, this gift and blessing that was bestowed upon us. The parks are part of that, they represent what was here. They represent the potentiality of what the land was like when we, as a nation, first set out.
The fact that we have set these places aside and we're keeping them special means that the boundary protecting this land is this idea that it is special. I like to think that the park idea is basically the Declaration of Independence overlaid onto this land that we inhabit. In other places they set those special places aside for the very richest in their society or for people who were of the nobility. But as Americans, we rejected that, determining that this land belongs to everyone. I think that deep down, Americans realize that, that this is not just a birthright – it is a great gift and it's also a great responsibility.
We pass on our nation's concept of liberty to the next generation – the same thing is true of a park. It's there for us to enjoy, but it's for everyone to enjoy for all time. These are spectacular places. You don't have to be sentimental about the Declaration of Independence, as I am, to go to a place like Glacier National Park and be awed by what you see.
The creation of a park establishes that sense of a special place. When you enter a park – you think differently. You pause and it takes you a little bit out of the rush of time and I think that is why so many families take their kids back and why those kids will take their kids back because it encapsulates an imperishable moment that you experience as a child. Then you can see that experience once again through your child's experience. There are very few things that pass across generations and across time the way that does. That's what makes it so special.
What did you learn while making this film?
I think the biggest surprise for me, the greatest lesson I learned in making this film is this reaffirming lesson of democracy: that we assume that the parks have always been there. We assume that it is a self-generating, perpetual governmental machine – that some bureaucracy says "this will be a park and this will always be a park."
And what you learn – what I learned and I what hope to pass on in the series – is just the opposite of that. The parks haven't always been there. They are the result not of the government as much as they are the result of the efforts of individual people. It was just a continual surprise with the story of each park that I looked into, that there were people who changed the fate of that place and the course of history with their actions. They changed history in the sense that those places will be there over the course of time.
I believe in democracy and what I wasn't prepared for were the great lessons of politics and democracy and citizen activism that are at the heart of the park story – the determination that these places are not only there for us, but for all people to enjoy. And also that all people can have a role in making sure that there are places for all of us to enjoy. It doesn't happen by itself and it sometimes happens with the help of powerful interests, but most often it was everyday people who changed the course of American history by deciding that a special portion of this great landscape was now going to be sacred and going to be preserved forever.
Ken Burns’ ‘Country Music’ Previewed by Producers, With PBS Airing Set for September
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CREDIT: Courtesy of Les Leverett Collection
Get ready for a grand ole doc’ry.
Country fans have been thirsty for years just to get a release date for, much less see, Ken Burns’ characteristically epic documentary on the genre. A delivery date for “Country Music” was finally provided Friday in PBS’ presentation for the film at the Television Critics Association conference in Pasadena: It’ll air across eight nights in the Sept. 15-25 time frame.
And you know you’re a true country fan if you look at the details unveiled about the doc and your first response is: Only 16 hours?
“Sixteen and a half,” corrected writer/producer Dayton Duncan, one of Burns’ longtime filmmaking partners — happy to have snuck even a few extra minutes in — as he spoke with Variety after the TCA panel. The only way to get it down to that length was by cutting off the history the film covers in the mid-1990s, with the rise of Garth Brooks, and avoiding the subsequent two and a half decades of changing trends and new superstars.
Unlike some of Burns’ earlier projects, there’ll be a limited amount of sepia, and an even more limited number of on-screen historians. Only one scholarly author of the country realm was interviewed for the project (Bill Malone). Country breeds its own avid historians among its most thoughtful artists, so most of the talking will be by familiar faces discussing their forebears as well as themselves — among them, the late Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Dwight Yoakam, Vince Gill, Reba McEntire, Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, Ricky Skaggs, Brenda Lee, Naomi and Wynonna Judd… and, of course, the artist who could give an impromptu lecture on country history in his 16-hour sleep, Marty Stuart.
“We made it clear to some of the people who appear in our film as commentators — like Dierks Bentley, Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show and Rhiannon Giddens — that they’re too damn young for us to cover their career,” says Duncan. “But they were gracious to tell us about the other generations that precede them and their influences.”
“We did 101 interviews, which is maybe 175 hours of interviews,” said another producer who shepherded the project, Julie Dunfey. Of those 101, 40 were Country Music Hall of Fame members. Also of those 101, 17 have passed away since their interviews were filmed over the last seven years — that’s according to a press release PBS prepared for the project. At Friday’s panel, though, they gave the number as 18. If you’re a country fan, you know that discrepancy wasn’t a mistake. The 18th, Dunfey confirmed, was Harold Bradley, who died Thursday.
“When the great stories fall off (in the editing process), I start to cry,” said Duncan. “Ken pats me on the back and says, ‘You can use it in the book.’” That would be the Duncan-penned “Country Music: An Illustrated History,” a 464-page book with more than 400 photos, which Knopf will issue Sept. 10. A lot of footage from the unused 160 hours of interviews will also appear on the film’s website and eventual DVD, for deep divers.
Plenty of ancillary products and events are being lined up. Sony Music announced plans Friday to release companion albums this fall, although their content what form they’ll take is being held in check.
What’s up first is a concert set to take place March 27 at the Ryman Auditorium, the venue that was home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943-74 (and still hosts the venerable show during winter months). That’ll include Bentley, Giddens, Cash, Gill, Skaggs, Stuart, Yoakam, Asleep at the Wheel and others playing vintage songs — and maybe a few of their own — for a special that will air in conjunction with the documentary in September. The Ryman concert will be preceded by a promotional bus tour that Burns and the producers will take from Bristol, Virginia through Knoxville and Memphis on their way to the Mother Church.
CREDIT: Courtesy PBS
In what significant ways does “Country Music” differ from “Jazz,” Burns’ last large-scale musical triptych?
“There is a difference in the commercial trajectory of the two,” says Duncan. “The swing era of jazz, that was one of the most commercially popular formats of music, and over time, that shrank and shrank. For country music, it’s sort of gone the opposite way. I don’t think one is necessarily better than the other because of that, but that’s their historical trajectory over the course of what we’re following, and we tell the commercial story of country music more than ‘Jazz’ did.
“What will be the same,” Duncan adds, “is that there are still people pissed off if their favorite jazz artist didn’t get the attention that either the artist or fans of the artist believe they should have gotten. I’m not naïve – that is going to happen with this. Because we can’t tell everybody’s story. It would become a K-Tel commercial. And for every person whose story we tell, there are five or six whose stories are not going to be told. Every song we didn’t do, that’s going to be somebody’s favorite song. And I’m just going to tell everybody that it’s Ken’s fault,” he quips.
Sally Williams, SVP of Programming & Artist Relations and GM of the Grand Ole Opry, which is partnering with Burns’ team on the ancillary concert special, chimed in. “I’m going to hear about a lot of those things, too,” she said. “And I’m going to tell people that this is going to drive the discovery not only of music that is in the film, but interest in discovering music that’s outside the film. That’s going to be my response when people come to me about it, because I believe it.”
“Okay, well, I’ll just do call forwarding to you,” laughed Duncan, “starting about Sept. 16!”
Dayton Duncan Describes Ken Burns Process In Making ‘Country Music’ – TCA
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Ken Burns could not come to TCA to tout his new documentary for PBS, Country Music, so frequent collaborator/writer/producer Dayton Duncan stood in for him.
He described Burns’s process:
“We chase every rabbit down every rabbit hole…That’s what reporting is. I’m a reporter who now talks about stories that are 100 years old” or more, he said.
“Our process is, I write a script using interviews and then we start making a film out of it. Then the hog wrestle begins – what to keep and what to throw out. It’s always too long at beginning, deliberately.”
Then a multitude of people on Burns’ team “sit and watch it, and say ‘Okay, what do we got to do here?’ and things start falling off,” Duncan continued.
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“When great stories fall off and I start to cry” that’s when Burns pats him on the back and says “That’s for the book, Dayton.”
On Country Music they made the deliberate decision to end with the 1990’s, to keep the history “at arm’s length,” Duncan described.
That necessitated making clear to some country music figures who participated in the project that “they’re just too damn young to cover their career” in the project. Nonetheless most were “gracious enough to tell us about the generation that preceded them” anyway.
Burns’s latest film will follow the evolution of country music, tracing its origins in minstrel music, ballads, hymns, and the blues, and its early years when it was called hillbilly music played across the airwaves on radio station barn dances. The docu focuses on the artists who created it, including the Carter family, Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, Charley Pride, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, etc., and the times in which they lived.
And, like all Burns documentaries, TV critics have come to expect to hear Burns wax eloquent about the parallels between his history project and contemporary issues. Country Music is no exception.
Country music rose from the bottom up,” he said; it was a way for so-called hillbillies, people of “all races but more from a certain economic class” who “felt looked down upon or disregarded entirely – a way they could tell their story.” Country music, he described, is mostly “lyric and melody.”
The eight-part film, in the works for six years, is set to premiere on PBS on September 15.
QUOTE:
Lucid, jam-packed, richly illustrated companion to the Ken Burns documentary series.
Country music is America's music--which is to say, music from every culture and ethnicity. An essential guide.
Duncan, Dayton COUNTRY MUSIC Knopf (Adult Nonfiction) $55.00 9, 10 ISBN: 978-0-525-52054-2
Lucid, jam-packed, richly illustrated companion to the Ken Burns documentary series.
Was Earl Scruggs the Eddie Van Halen of his day? Quoting John McEuen of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Duncan (Seed of the Future: Yosemite and the Evolution of the National Park Idea, 2013, etc.) makes the connection between the banjo master and the guitar shredder: "It was so fast. It was what excited people." In the same way, Hank Williams was a punk rocker in his time, while Willie Nelson--well, Willie is unmistakably himself. As Rhiannon Giddens, of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, has lately been demonstrating, country music is the music of rural blacks, whites, and Native people, a style, writes the author, that "was not invented; it emerged." Rising from the bottom up and drawing, like the blues, on black gospel, country music was popularized by the new medium of radio, becoming a staple through "hillbilly" variety shows throughout the South. As a mix of ethnic forms, it ironically slipped through Henry Ford's racist denunciation of jazz, gaining in popularity at the same time. Some country stars came to prominence accidentally: Roy Acuff might have been a baseball star had it not been for a case of sunstroke, and had he not been abused as a child, Hank Snow might not have run away from home. And then there are the working-class strivers: the ill-fated Williams, Wanda Jackson, Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline. Duncan has broad tastes and an appreciation for the many strains that feed into the musical form, so that Dwight Yoakam, the Judds, Gram Parsons, and Guy Clark get as much play as Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash, and George Jones. He also tracks the rising and waning commercial fortunes of country, which found plenty of room for the likes of Garth Brooks and new pop-y stars while freezing out old-timers like Nelson and Cash.
Country music is America's music--which is to say, music from every culture and ethnicity. An essential guide.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Duncan, Dayton: COUNTRY MUSIC." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2019. Gale General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A591279127/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7c7153db. Accessed 12 Aug. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A591279127
QUOTE:
Duncan's work is a fitting and timely tribute both to Yosemite's enduring natural beauty and the wisdom of America's national park program
Seed of the Future: Yosemite and the Evolution of the National Park Idea. By Dayton Duncan. Nov. 2013.224p. illus. Yosemite Conservancy, paper, $27 (9781930238428). 363.68.
Although Yellowstone Park was the first large American wilderness area to receive an official national park designation, the seed for this notion of setting aside vast tracts of land for public enjoyment began in California's Yosemite Valley. To commemorate the 150th anniversary of Yosemite National Park's founding, award-winning author and documentary filmmaker Duncan looks back at the beginnings of the wilderness-preservation movement and the environmentally inclined visionaries who convinced Abraham Lincoln to sign the Yosemite Grant Act in 1864. Among the colorful historical figures Duncan profiles here are naturalist John Muir, perhaps Yosemite's greatest champion; James Mason Hutchings, whose enthusiastic drumbeat for Yosemite tourism almost led to the park's destruction; and Theodore Roosevelt, arguably the nation's most conservation-minded president. Duncan also shows how Yosemite landmarks, such as El Capitan and the sequoia-forested Mariposa Grove, became internationally famous. Illustrated with beautiful color photographs in a coffee-table format, Duncan's work is a fitting and timely tribute both to Yosemite's enduring natural beauty and the wisdom of America's national park program.--Carl Hays
Hays, Carl
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Hays, Carl. "Seed of the Future: Yosemite and the Evolution of the National Park Idea." Booklist, 1 Nov. 2013, p. 8. Gale General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A351947576/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=89d80cc0. Accessed 12 Aug. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A351947576
QUOTE: "magnificent companion to the documentary film series bearing the same title
Duncan, Dayton. The national parks: America's best idea: an illustrated history, preface by Ken Burns; picture research by Susanna Steisel and Aileen Silverstone. Knopf, 2009. 403p bibl index afp ISBN 9780307268969, $50.00
Duncan and Burns have produced a magnificent companion to the documentary film series bearing the same title. This six-chapter book, well illustrated with effective photos and eloquent essays, is enhanced by personal interviews to exemplify how national parks matter to American people as a source of peace, inspiration, and knowledge. The authors effectively communicate a key message: the idea of national parks is never static, nor is it perfect. Instead, the idea continually undergoes evolution and refinement, reflecting changes in America's demographics and social values. Unlike many general readings on national parks that focus on beauty and accomplishments, this book cautions readers about the current challenges facing national parks to remind Americans that continual engagement in national park issues is essential if this "best idea" is to stand the test of time and generations. Overall, this volume is a good contribution to the national park and conservation literature. It will serve very nicely as general reading for public libraries, supplementary reading for undergraduate classes, and substantive training material for park interpreters, educators, and managers. Summing Up. Highly recommended. *** Academic, public, and professional readers, all levels.--F.-F. Leung, North Carolina &ate University
Leung, Y.-F.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2010 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Leung, Y.-F. "Duncan, Dayton. The national parks: America's best idea: an illustrated history." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2010, p. 1548. Gale General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A251861493/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ab1be92b. Accessed 12 Aug. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A251861493
QUOTE:
The essays and photos eloquently argue that the national parks are America's best idea and that they bring out our best selves. Outstanding!
[star]Duncan, Dayton & Ken Burns. The National Parks: America's Best Idea: An Illustrated History. Knopf. 2009. 432p. illus. maps. index. ISBN 978-0-307-26896-9. $50. NAT HIST
This lavishly illustrated companion to the authors' five-part, 12-hour PBS documentary (which premiered Sept. 27) outlines the dramatic history of the national park system; the personalities of preservationists Theodore Roosevelt, Stephen Mather, and Horace Albright; and the scores of citizens who discovered the magic of the parks. This history features interviews with a superintendent at Mount Rushmore, park ranger Shelton Johnson, and writers Nevada Barr, Paul Schullery, Juanita Greene, and Terry Tempest Williams. Printed on 40-percent recovered fiber paper, the book also includes historic photos, many taken by park visitors with Brownie cameras.
Verdict The essays and photos eloquently argue that the national parks are America's best idea and that they bring out our best selves. Outstanding! [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/09.]--Patricia Ann Owens, Wabash Valley Coll., Mt. Carmel, Il
Owens, Patricia Ann
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2009 Library Journals, LLC
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/xpress/884170-289/xpress_reviews-first_look_at_new.html.csp
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Owens, Patricia Ann. "[star]Duncan, Dayton & Ken Burns. The National Parks: America's Best Idea: An Illustrated History." Xpress Reviews, 9 Oct. 2009. Gale General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A210436822/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ca58e796. Accessed 12 Aug. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A210436822
QUOTE:
Duncan’s and Burns’s lavishly illustrated and cinematic narrative will stand as the definitive history of the genre.
Country Music: An Illustrated History
Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns. Knopf, $55 (560p) ISBN 978-0-525-52054-2
More By and About This Author
This voluminous and hugely entertaining introduction to country music coincides with the release of the eponymous PBS series, by producer and writer Duncan (Out West) and producer and filmmaker Burns (The Civil War). The authors take readers through the history of country music, including Jimmie Rodgers’s performance on Asheville’s first radio station in 1927, the gospel-infused strains of the Carter Family in the 1930s and ’40s, the country and western stylings of Ernest Tubb in the 1950s, the strings-drenched Nashville Sound of the 1960s, later, the outlaw country of Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson and the California country of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard; and the 1980s and ’90s pop country sound of Garth Brooks, the Judd sisters, and Reba McEntire. The narrative—supported by concert photos and images of album jackets and various memorabilia—moves at a quick clip as the authors highlight the lives and music of such influential musicians as Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Hank Williams. They also celebrate the venues that have become like holy temples, especially Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium—home of the Grand Ole Opry—and Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, across the alley from the Ryman. Interspersed throughout are interviews with such country music stars as Rosanne Cash, Guy Clark, Marty Stuart, and Emmylou Harris (“The simplicity of country music is one of the most important things about it,” Harris says). Duncan’s and Burns’s lavishly illustrated and cinematic narrative will stand as the definitive history of the genre. (Sept.)
DETAILS
Reviewed on : 07/24/2019
Release date: 09/10/2019
Genre: Nonfiction
Ebook - 978-0-525-52055-9
Compact Disc - 978-0-525-58884-9
Compact Disc - 978-0-525-58886-3
Out West: 2an American Journey Along the Lewis and Clark Trail
Dayton Duncan, Author Viking Books $19.95 (0p) ISBN 978-0-670-80822-9
MORE BY AND ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Tracing the route taken by the Lewis and Clark expedition leads a modern traveler to a lot dead ends; as New Hampshire journalist Duncan discovered, time and civilization have wrought change. Driving a battered camper, he made two summer journeys and one in winter, following the explorers' trail of discovery. Duncan tried to experience situations akin to those of the expedition: in North Dakota he spent a wintry night in a Mandan earth lodge, sleeping under buffalo robes; in Montana he joined other Lewis and Clark buffs for a canoe trip on the Missouri to a well-documented campsite. From St. Louis to the Oregon coast, Duncan introduces us to the small towns and people of the modern West. This is an off-beat story that successfully combines history, travel and personal adventure. 35,000 first printing; author tour. (May)
DETAILS
Reviewed on: 05/01/1987
Release date: 05/01/1987
Genre: Nonfiction