Only pbs would kick off a documentary called "Rock & Roll" with a quotation from Plato: "When the mode of the music changes, the halls of the city shake." They follow up with the words of another great thinker, the guy who said: "Whole lotta shakin' goin' on." But the damage is already done. You expect Alistair Cooke to come back from retirement to introduce this sober 10-hour lecture (starting Sept. 24) produced by Boston's WGBH. It's painfully obvious that PBS is trying to be hipper in the face of growing hostility and indifference--but hasn't figured out how. "Rock & Roll" is scholarly, informative and clueless. It does not rock.
A lot of it feels very secondhand. Too many boring old guys sitting around mixing boards talking about famous rock stars who wouldn't sit for an interview. There are many people whose memories of the day Martin Luther King died you'd want to hear; the engineer who mixed Aretha Franklin's vocal tracks isn't one of them. The star power ratchets up on the other side of the Atlantic, no doubt thanks to the BBC's involvement as series coproducers. No new Beatles exclusives, but talkaholic Pete Townshend makes an appearance. And guitar god Jeff Beck has plenty of time on his hands to reminisce about the time he met Jimmy Hendrix. As for the promised "rare" archival footage, it looks pretty familiar. There were much cooler clips on the 10-hour "History of Rock 'n' Roll" that was syndicated on TV earlier this year and is now out on video. You won't see the Rolling Stones stripping groupies naked or hurling TV sets out hotel windows on PBS. Newt would freak!
He might still object to the P.C. slant. The British Invasion is played as a Columbus-like "conquest" by a bunch of European colonialist moptops who put African-American R&B singers out of work. Hey, if you had to listen to Ben E. King sing "A Hose in Spanish Harlem" as many times as this series plays it, you'd be begging for someone to conquer you too. The series dismisses most classic white-boy rock, glossing over Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, heavy metal and the alternative movement (R.E.M. doesn't rate a mention), while devoting an entire hour to funk. Maybe public television is still trying to make up for playing all that horrible John Tesh music during pledge week.
The flip side of the didactic droning is that you do learn something. These are 10 seriously educational hours. Influences are meticulously traced from one era and musician to the next. The Byrds' Roger McGuinn demonstrates on his 12-string guitar how he adapted Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" into a pop hit. Lou Reed cites Raymond Chandler as the source for his pulp lyricism. And ex-Sex Pistol John Lydon says he stole from Laurence Olivier's "totally over-the-top" Richard III to create his totally over-the-top punk persona, Johnny Rotten. Maybe he should host the next pledge drive.
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