(Ran originally in Sunday October 6 editions of The Times and The News-Star.)

Country Music: A Film by Ken Burns is all the television rage right now, an eight-part documentary worth watching if for no other reason than to enjoy the genius of Roger Miller and his made-up-on-the-spot parody of I Walk the Line on The Johnny Cash Show.

Both Miller and Cash in suits sitting there on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville with their guitars, all spiffy and smiling, and Miller starts, cautiously, and sort of feels his way through these four never-sang-until-now lines:

“I keep my pants up with a piece of twine,

I keep my eyes wide open all the time,

I keep the ends out for the tie that binds,

Please say you’re mine, and pull the twine.”

Hilarity ensues.

A tame lyric today for sure, but that’s walking the line on 1969 network television. And it’s during the time country music was changing from “You can’t write about that” to “We write about that all the time.”

Once Roger Miller wrote the wannabe lyric, “I’m still here because my tears feel right at home in Salt Lake City,” showed it to singer-songwriter stud Larry Gatlin, laughed and said, “That’s all I’ve got to the song so far…”

Gatlin looked at it, wrote, “…and if I keep on crying, I’ll have a Salt Lake all of my own.”

Miller loved that. Me too.

Gatlin finished If I Never See You or Utah Again and splits the royalties with the family of the multi-talented and now late Miller. I learned that story not from the documentary but from Larry Gatlin at a performance by him and his brothers one night, but that’s just the sort of thing Country Music will show you, and I like those kinds of stories.

I haven’t watched all eight episodes yet because of work and whatnot, but I have watched enough of it and talked to enough people to let you know with full confidence that this documentary has been a musical and lyrical oasis in a dry and barren land that is today’s television. And country music.

I understand, even though The Carol Burnett Show has bit the dust, that there is still wonderful TV being made, which is why I don’t watch it because I don’t want to get sucked in. I’m sure a lot of it is silly — the sitcoms, please — but a lot of it is good.

Can’t say the same for today’s country music, which, barring a Brad Paisley here and a Vince Gill there, is gut-bucket drivel.

Ain’t happening.

But who’s complaining? We’ve got online music apps to fetch up some Charley Pride and Gene Watson, and now, to give us some more context, we’ve got Country Music, which you can stream online at pbs.org. Each episode is about two hours.

There are probably other easier ways to watch it; ask your kids or grandkids and they’ll have you hooked up before you can say Johnny Austin Paycheck.

I’ve had a half-dozen people say they think this is the best TV they’ve ever seen. And who doesn’t love themselves a good documentary?

Next time I’ll introduce you to a friend who knows and loves music. We will co-announce the Four Top Female Country Artists, do the same with the males, songs, and instrumentalists. Of course that’s just our opinion, so you be thinking of yours…

In the meantime, as Johnny Cash would sing…If you’re behind, catch up online.

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