Photo: YouTube
Jack White, T Bone Burnett and Robert Redford have teamed up to produce ‘American Epic’, a three-part documentary tracing the roots of recorded music in America.
The documentary, which is scheduled to air on PBS this fall, will feature new footage of artists (including Jack White, Alabama Shakes, Beck, Willie Nelson, Elton John, the Avett Brothers, Frank Fairfield, Rhiannon Giddens, Merle Haggard, Pokey LaFarge, Bettye LaVette, Los Lobos, Taj Mahal, Steve Martin & Edie Brickell, Nas and Raphael Saadiq) recording songs from the 1920s, on equipment from the 1920s.
Watch the trailer for 'American Epic':
There will also be an accompanying soundtrack released by Columbia Records (with the contemporary recordings), along with a collection of archival recordings, released via Sony Music’s Legacy Recordings, as well as a deluxe vinyl set via Jack White’s Third Man Records.
The documentary – made by two British filmmakers, Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty – retraces the steps early recording pioneers took while traveling the US with recording machines. Those recordings that they made, during the 1920s and 1930s, led to the development of the blues, country, gospel, Hawaiian, Cajun and folk music.
The documentary will feature previously unseen film footage, unpublished photographs and exclusive interviews with some of the last living witnesses to that era.
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