The wealthy and colorful story of America’s most popular music as well as the singers and songwriters who captivated, entertained, and consoled listeners through the entire twentieth century–based on the upcoming eight-part film series to air on PBS in Sept 2019

This deeply researched and hugely entertaining history begins where country music itself emerged: the American South, where people sang to themselves also to their families at home and in church, and where they danced to fiddle tunes on about Country Music: A History Saturday nights. Using the birth of radio in the 1920s, the tracks moved from small towns, hill hollers, and the wide-open Western world to be the music of a whole nation–a diverse selection of sounds and styles from honky tonk to gospel to bluegrass to rockabilly, leading up through the years to the music’s massive commercial success today.

But above all, Country Music is the story from the musicians. Here’s Hank Williams’s tragic honky tonk lifestyle, Dolly Parton increasing to fame from a dirt-poor years as a child, and Loretta Lynn turning her experiences into songs that spoke to women everywhere. Here too are interviews using the genre’s biggest stars, including the enjoys of Merle Haggard to Garth Brooks to Rosanne Cash. Rife with endlessly exciting anecdotes, the stories within this sweeping however intimate history will captivate longtime country fans and bring in fresh listeners to a fantastic body of music that lies at the very center of the American experience.