France -- Country Music awards coming up

Heads up for the 8th French Country Music Awards next month!

The ceremony takes place Oct. 23.

Obituary -- David Dortort, creator of BONANZA

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Photo: Autry National Center

David Dortort, the pioneering television producer who created the iconic western show Bonanza, died Sunday at the age of 93.

The Autry National Center runs a lengthy obituary of him on its blog. I had the pleasure and privilege of conducting a lengthy interview with Dortort when I was a Visiting Scholar at the Autry -- I do not have a copy of the interview with me at the moment, but when I do I will post some excerpts. Meanwhile, you can watch a three hour interview with him conducted in 2002 for the Archive of American Television by clicking HERE

Bonanza, a ground-breaking "adult western" that focused on the life of a family of men on the Ponderosa ranch near Virginia City, was one of the most popular TV westerns of all time -- shown in dozens of countries and dubbed into local languages.

Considered Dortort’s most important work, “Bonanza” became one of the most popular and the second longest-running western on television, with 425 episodes airing from 1959 to 1973. The family saga of thrice-widowed Nevada rancher Ben Cartwright, his disparate sons, and their vast landholdings also was the first of a new genre at the time — the adult western.

“Prior to that particular time, most of the Westerns that you saw on TV were geared toward children,” said Jeffrey Richardson, the Autry’s associate curator of film and popular culture. “These were shows like ‘The Gene Autry Show,’ ‘Roy Rogers,’ ‘Sky King,’ those types of shows, which were very simplistic in their message.”

With the adult Western, Richardson said, television was able to tackle more controversial issues and social themes — topics that resonated more with what was going on in the United States in the1960s, rather than in the 1870s.

“The issues that they’re dealing with in the standard ‘mission of the week’ were issues that were relevant to people in the 1960s,” Richardson said. “Gender was one. Race. Society and the role of the ‘big guy.’ “

I remember that when I checked into the "Colorado" hotel on my first visit to the Skluv Mlyn wild west town in the Czech Republic, the theme song from Bonanza was being played in the background -- sung in Czech.

Similarly, Dortort's papers, which he donated to the Autry, include fan letters -- one of them is from  a German filmmaker in Berlin

"who tells Dortort he was walking along the Wall on the West side one day when he heard someone on the East side whistling the theme to “Bonanza.” “He talked about the irony of it,” said Marva Felchlin, director of the Autry Library. “That says something about the allure of the West.”

Germany -- Karl May Fest in Bad Segeberg has hugely successful season

 Erol Sander meets fans. Photo: www.karl-may-spiele.de  

The summer Karl May festival season is ending, and the biggest and oldest KM Festival, in Bad Segeberg in northern Germany, reports that it had its third most successful season ever --  307,787 visitors came to see its open air production of "Halbblut" starring Erol Sander  as the Apache chief Winnetou, Eva Habermann  as Kitty LaBelle and Ingo Naujoks as Charles Leveret.

The season, as always, ran from late June into early September. The number of spectators was a bit lower than the record set last year, when The Treasure of Silver Lake drew 320,339 people. It was the first time in the nearly 60-year history of the festival that the audience has topped 300,000 two years in a row. (The person who bought the 300,000th ticket sold this year received a prize of €3,000.)

Next year the Bad Segeberg festival will celebrate its 60th year jubilee, premiering a production of The Oil Prince on June 25.

Bad Segeberg is the most venerable of about a dozen summer festivals in Germany, Austria and elsewhere in central Europe that feature open-air productions of plays based on the stories and characters of Karl May, the German adventure writer who created the most enduring Wild West characters in Europe. May died in 1912 and never visited the American west -- on his one trip to the USA, in 1908,  the furthest west he got was Niagara Falls.

First Russian-American bluegrass jamboree

Pete and Joan Wernick and Justin Hoffenberg have returned from headlining the first-ever Russia-America Bluegrass Jamboree. The event took place July 20 and 21, 2010 in the cities of Vologda and Semenkovo in "deep Russia", an overnight train east from St. Petersburg. See their report, with links to video, on  the DrBanjo.com web site.

Our trip was arranged expressly for the purpose of bridging the gap between Americans and Russians. Thanks to all the positive attention we got, from concertgoers, from the media, and from the various officials in the Consulate world, both American and Russian, it seems it was a successful effort. I felt a serious responsibility, representing America to such a large number of Russians, and representing bluegrass music as well. The main Jamboree event we played was in the town center of a sizable city amid ancient buildings. Vologda is in a farming area, famous for butter, ice cream, linen, and lace (not bad!). The people there are used to long winters, hard work, and quite a lot of loss. They can be high spirited, and really believe in festivities, and in their kids. So we got some good tastes of those aspects, and enjoyed three very elaborate "official" type meals with Russian and Consul hosts. A second performance took place at a historical museum comparable to Williamsburg.

There has been some interest in bluegrass and country music in Russia for some years. Best known was the group Bering Strait, which I think disbanded a few years ago -- and tried to break in to Nashville. The band was the subject of a documentary film that can be viewed online.

Australian Country Music

There's a long and insightful article about the state of Australian Country Music at themusicnetwork.com.

The article, by Lars Brandle, argues that Australian country music need to find a younger audience to survive and grow.

The quality of Australian artists isn’t an issue. Australia’s current crop of country talent is arguably as strong and relevant as the market has ever produced. Caboolture’s golden boy Keith Urban opened at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 with his 2009 Capitol Nashville album, Defying Gravity. While two rising stars Adam Brand and The McClymonts are carving out their own paths to the U.S., striking deals with Arista and Executive Music Group respectively.

[...]

However, to the ordinary Facebook fixated Australian teen, Urban is best known as the other half of Hollywood star Nicole Kidman. And without such famous partners, the likes of Brand and the McClymonts are largely ignored outside country circles.

Smashing the time-worn perception of Australian country music will take some time, and some doing. It’ll require a retooling of the business. Australia’s country scene must tackle the online space and network TV, say executives, but save its biggest shakedown for the traditional Tamworth Festival and the annual Country Music Awards of Australia Awards.  

[...]  

Tamworth has come to epitomise the issues facing Australia’s country scene.

“If the Tamworth festival had any mind to grow the festival, it would make it appealing to young people and restock the fanbase,” argues CMC Program Director Tim Daley. Currently, more than 44% of the core audience of the festival is 55 year of age and over. According to Daley, only 14% of the CMC audience is over 55, whereas 42% is 24 and under. “It’s pretty simple,” says Daley, “you make it appeal to young people, and you restock the fanbase.”

European Bluegrass -- Survey to help organize new EBMA magazine

The European Bluegrass Music Association has launched a survey to help it revamp its magazine Bluegrass Europe.

The new magazine is set to launch in April.

Meanwile, the EBMA web site is constantly being expanded, and the European Bluegrass blog provides a continuing flow of information, including gig dates, festivals, band profiles and other material.

Imaginary Wild West: Michael Jackson's Western Style

The Autry National Center in Los Angeles has just opened a special exhibit on How the West Was Worn... by Michael Jackson.  

It's a sartorial Imaginary Wild West that traces its way back to the glamour clothes of Buffalo Bill, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and a host of rhinestone cowboys and glittery country and western singers.

In the world of style, pop icon Michael Jackson’s willingness to try different patterns and designs made him truly unique. Millions of people around the world saw his elaborate costumes, but very few realized the Western influence in the design. The Autry National Center’s installation shows how Jackson’s use of Western wear evolved over the years, reflecting his ability to use classic Western styles in distinctive ways.

 The Autry is a wonderful museum that pays particular attention to the West of the Imagination as well as the reality of the American frontier experience. I had a fellowship there a few years ago to study the creation and marketing of the western myth, and I have a date to speak to museum docents there next month.