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Courtesy of The Winding Stream
The Winding Stream: The Carters, the Cashes, and the Course of Country Music
Prelude: 'The Winding Stream' is in my list of top ten, all-time favorite documentary films. I have seen it more than five times.
Documentary films have the power to bring us into worlds we never heard of, or barely know of—worlds we may have no interest in whatsoever.
But if we follow the filmmaker’s Yellow Brick Road we are amazed at how much fun it was, how fascinating and engaging—grateful we took the first step and kept walking.
Directed by highly accomplished filmmaker Beth Harrington, The Winding Stream tells the story of the Carter family who are considered ‘The Big Bang of Country Music.’ The three family members who started it all were A.P., Sara, and Maybelle, from Maces, Virginia, in the Appalachian foothills.
The story takes us from the late 1800s to present times, with interviews of and performances by a handful of performers paying tribute to the three seminal members who are referred to as ‘the Original Carter Family.’
This is a stunning, expertly crafted film. Each of the three Carter family members could easily be the subject of a documentary or narrative film. Their personal lives were quietly epic, their contributions to American music, incalculable. I will walk this particular Yellow Brick Road many more times.