MUSIC DOCUMENTARY #18 VA - American Epic Vol. 01 - Vol. 04 [2017] MP4

MUSIC DOCUMENTARY #18

VA - American Epic Vol. 01 - Vol. 04 [2017] MP4

American Epic, The Big Bang + American Epic, Blood and Soil + American Epic, Out of the Many, The One + American Epic, Sessions [2017] (4 x MP4)

American Epic is a documentary media franchise based upon the first recordings of roots music in the United States during the 1920's and their cultural, social and technological impact on North America and the world. The franchise comprises a three-part award-winning documentary film series directed by Bernard MacMahon, a feature-length musical documentary film, a book, ten album releases and an educational program. American Epic is widely considered as the definitive portrait of the musical era, and one of the best music documentaries ever made

American Epic is a documentary film series about the first recordings of roots music in the United States during the 1920's and their cultural, social and technological impact on North America and the world 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.

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 1920's, which were open to every ethnic minority and genre of music.  The films contained many previously untold stories, a vast amount of previously unseen and extremely rare archival footage and dramatically advanced audio restorations of the 1920's and 1930's recordings.

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 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. During pre-production, when MacMahon presented his vision for the films and the archival footage to Robert Redford at their first meeting, Redford pronounced it “America’s greatest untold story.”

The film series received a number of awards, including the Foxtel Audience Award at the 2016 Sydney Film Festival, the Discovery Award at the 2016 Calgary International Film Festival, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy. On April 23, 2018, the Focal International Awards nominated American Epic for Best Use of Footage in a History Feature and Best Use of Footage in a Music Production. Many critics have cited the American Epic films as being one of the best music documentaries ever made.

Also included here is The American Epic Sessions a documentary film in which an engineer restores the long-lost first electrical sound recording system on which the 1920's field recording sessions were made, and twenty contemporary artists pay tribute to the momentous machine by attempting to record songs on it for the first time in 80 years. 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.  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. It also explored the extent to which the recordings made on it in the 1920s influenced and inspired contemporary music. (Wikipedia)

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