Tonight I watched an awesome program on PBS about a very important piece of music history, Sun Records. It was an episode of American Masters and the program was called "Good Rockin' Tonight." The program consisted of musicians from Sun Records, especially the backing musicians, reminiscing about the good times and giving up their theories on the importance of the music coming from Sun Records. An amazingly young-looking Sam Phillips is present throughout the program with his stories and his banter with musicians he recorded 50 years ago. The history of the label was roughly outlined by on-screen text between segments about each musician or moment.
More importantly, the program also showed the recording of a Sun Records tribute. Overseen by legendary impresario Ahmet Ertegun, the tribute project consisted of modern musicians like Ben Folds Five, Live and Matchbox Twenty as well as legends like Paul McCartney, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, and Jerry Lee Lewis recording new versions of old Sun Records hits. The definite musical highlight was Paul McCartney's version of "That's Alright Mama" recorded with some of Elvis' backing musicians.
It was a very interesting and entertaining program to watch. I enjoyed watching the performances (except for Third Eye Blind's utter raping of "Cry Cry Cry") and really enjoyed watching the musicians telling their stories and telling their thoughts about the importance of the music. This is just another example of how important public television really is! I hope it doesn't die or shows like these will never be aired!
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
It sounds like a good program, I'll have to keep my eye out for it.
Hope you're having a great week!!
Oh, don't you know it Russ. When ever I hear government official-types saying that we should just do away with PBS, or NPR, I just want to SCREAM! I wonder if this is going to come out on DVD?
Post a Comment