American Epic is a documentary media franchise based upon the first recordings of roots music in the United States during the 1920s and their cultural, social and technological impact on North America and the world.
[1] The story is told through twelve ethnically and musically diverse musicians who auditioned for and participated in these pioneering recording sessions; The Carter Family, the Memphis Jug Band, Elder J.E.
Burch, The Williamson Brothers, Dick Justice, Charley Patton, The Hopi Indian Chanters, Joseph Kekuku, Lydia Mendoza, the Breaux Family, Mississippi John Hurt, and Blind Willie Johnson.
[9][10][6] The film was directed and co-written by Bernard MacMahon and stars Nas, Alabama Shakes, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Jack White, Taj Mahal, Ana Gabriel, Pokey LaFarge, Beck, Ashley Monroe, and Steve Martin.
[2] In the fall of 2017 an educational program based on the American Epic film series was launched at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.
[13] American Epic is a documentary film series about the first recordings of roots music in the United States during the 1920s and their cultural, social and technological impact on North America and the world.
[1] Directed and co-written by Bernard MacMahon, the story is told through twelve ethnically and musically diverse musicians who auditioned for and participated in these pioneering recording sessions; The Carter Family, the Memphis Jug Band, Elder J.E.
Burch, The Williamson Brothers, Dick Justice, Charley Patton, The Hopi Indian Chanters, Joseph Kekuku, Lydia Mendoza, the Breaux Family, Mississippi John Hurt, and Blind Willie Johnson.
[8] The film was the result of ten years of intensive field research and postulated a radically new take on American history, namely that America was democratized through the invention of electrical sound recording and the subsequent auditions the record labels held across North America in the late 1920s, which were open to every ethnic minority and genre of music.
[20][21] MacMahon decided all the interviewees had to personally have known the long-deceased subjects of the films and these interviews were conducted on location where the musicians had lived[22] accompanied by panoramic tracking shots of the geographical locations both present and vintage to give a sense of the wildly varied North American landscape and its influence on the music.
[9][10][6] The film was directed and co-written by Bernard MacMahon and stars Nas, Alabama Shakes, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Jack White, Taj Mahal, Ana Gabriel, Pokey LaFarge, Beck, Ashley Monroe and Steve Martin.
[9] The film employed a diverse line-up of performers, both ethnically and musically, to represent the breadth of cultures that were first given a national platform through the invention of this recording machine.
[42] Air date on PBS: American Epic: The First Time America Heard Itself is a collaborative memoir written by film director Bernard MacMahon, producer Allison McGourty, and music historian Elijah Wald.
[7] The 78rpm disc transfers were made by sound engineer Nicholas Bergh using reverse engineering techniques, garnered from working with the original 1920s recording equipment on The American Epic Sessions,[29] along with meticulous sound restoration undertaken by Peter Henderson and Joel Tefteller to reveal greater fidelity, presence, and clarity to these 1920s and 30s recordings than had ever been heard before.