One intriguing wrinkle to Burns’ time-tested approach to presenting the past is having various musicians play some of the songs they discuss. (One session musician who played on recordings that helped to define the mid-century “Nashville Sound” discusses how the sheer volume of their output meant that even with the hits, there were plenty of forgettable misses.) In some cases, these alternate perspectives help to puncture some of the mythology that surrounds various transformative periods and figures in this ongoing legacy. Radio DJs, producers, and session players provide their own window into their personal histories and the legends they’ve accumulated over generations. “Country Music” gets some of its greatest insights from the behind-the-scenes players who were able to shape this area of the musical world in less obvious ways. ‘American Born Chinese’ Review: A Sweet Teen Odyssey with Killer Moves

Burns operates from a high floor in how this history flows from era to era, often rewarding the patience it regularly demands. Peter Coyote’s dependable baritone is just as much a fuel for gravitas as ever, while the stills of early genre proprietors seem tailor-made for the sepia-toned hue of history that often fill up these runtimes. The series doesn’t stray too far from the particular Florentine house style. Told over eight installments, spanning 16 hours, “Country Music” is a largely chronological examination of milestone moments and figures within the evolution of the genre. While the series itself makes a compelling case for the importance of this music to a vast number of individuals across the country, it also raises plenty of questions about who decides what gets included in that sense of appreciation. “ Country Music” - like “Baseball,” “Jazz,” “The Civil War” and “Jackie Robinson” before it - presents itself as a century-spanning compendium of a particular kind of music that’s been woven into the fabric of American life. The prolific documentary filmmaker’s works have long had names that are unequivocal, as if there was any doubt about the subject matter contained within. With few exceptions, the titles of Ken Burns documentaries serve as their own declarative statements.

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