Gabe McCauley uses humor on his TV show to look at America’s future
and examines our past as a framework for what lies ahead.
Written by J. M. McSpadden / Photography courtesy Reconnecting Roots
Questions: In 2023 – three years after a global pandemic, a summer of riots, political division, and unrest not seen since the 1960s – America is left to ask itself questions. How did we get here? What do we think about it? What, if any, of our old values still resonate? Are our ideals still ideal, worthy of our blood, sweat, and tears? When people clamor for fifteen minutes of fame do they care at all about 400 years of struggle?
Fortunately, for those of us not glued to the latest posts of the newest social media influencers, there is Reconnecting Roots. In its third season, the PBS television program hopes to put our present-day concerns into context. In a rather irreverent way, the program sticks to the facts while having fun with our history.
The Emmy-winning series on PBS promises to tackle history, culture, and values while giving human nature the old side-eye. Behind the scenes is Frank Smith, a Canadian-American businessman who made his mark in equipment for the coal mining industry. In the spotlight is Gabe McCauley, the affable and slightly sardonic host of the show. He and his production company, lilDRAGON, are based in Columbia, Tennessee.
McCauley, who routinely sports tailored vests and a classic Stetson, has the right amount of self-awareness, and likes to deal in irony. The narrative, which rarely follows a straight line, is cheeky and creative in its presentation. This ain’t your grandparent’s history class.
The show’s website describes the program this way: “Imagine if NPR’s This American Life showed up on the set of Austin City Limits with Ken Burns’ and Bill Nye’s baby.” That tagline seems fairly accurate. Reconnecting Roots marries its quirky style to a sort of re-imagined Americana take on traditional period music. The show opens with a slightly reconsidered version of America the Beautiful, the lyrics reassuring us that “we’re home.”
But what is this home? What was its foundation built upon? Will it withstand the storms of the passage of time? McCauley and company hope to find the answers to these questions on their journey across America.
lilDRAGON: The production team describes themselves as “free thinkers inspired by American ideals, devoted to sharing stories that illuminate the past and guide us forward… we spark generational conversations and inspire learning.” While that might seem to be a lofty goal, McCauley and company do their best to reach it, while keeping us intrigued long enough to stay tuned for the full thirty-minute episode.
History is, itself, a tricky subject. In the wrong hands, it is merely a handful of dates and facts without nuance or context. In the right hands it is as thrilling as the best fiction (for example, S. C. Gywnne’s Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanche Tribe).
Through the Glasses, Darkly: In lesser hands, history is a form of written and oral torture. In my sophomore year at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington I experienced this first hand. Whether it was US History Before or After 1865 I cannot say, I have lost that fact to the mists of time. In the spring of 1976, my US history professor was also a protestant minister with a serious case of astigmatism and eyeglasses that featured lenses so thick they might have been bulletproof. His preferred method of teaching US History was to read from the textbook verbatim for the full 90 minutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Because of his ophthalmic issues he achieved this by holding the textbook up to his face so that, to this day, I cannot remember what he looked like. This was a blessing of sorts in that the prof never saw me fall asleep, or notice my best friend whacking me on the neck with his pencil to startle me awake. The hijinks of higher education. That semester I learned all I needed through osmosis.
McCauley, and his production team at lilDRAGON get it. I suspect that at some time or other they took the same class I did. Or perhaps they sat through the same three-hour night class in art history. I still recall my professor taking the time to point out the scrotum on a character portrayed on a piece of Etruscan pottery. I got a lot of sleep that semester.
Fortunately for the viewers McCauley never travels below the belt to make his point. The writers of the show wisely stay above the equator while tackling our nation’s history. The show is remarkable in that it is relatively free of present-day political slant. And in this day of forced conformity that is refreshing. There is no left or right, and if there is a libertarian influence, it is indetectable. Mark Twain and Will Rogers would be proud. What remains is largely a panoramic view of America, the good and the bad.
The Backstory: The show is the brainchild of Frank Smith. Smith, the inventor, having made his fortune in heavy equipment, has gone on to promote music. He is the creative force behind Music Ranch Montana, located in Paradise Valley. The venue has hosted performances by the Charlie Daniels Band, Joey and Rory Feek, Charley Pride, The Bellamy Brothers, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, to name a few. The venue boasts that it is “the last best music venue” and the “best dance venue in Montana.”
Smith has found a way to combine his love for roots music and history in Reconnecting Roots. The program takes songs in the public domain and reimagines them for a modern audience, as a way of reconnecting the listener to an earlier time.
McCauley knew early on that he wanted to be involved in film. “I’ve always not minded making a bit of a fool of myself. I was comfortable being the center of attention. I wanted to act,” he says. “I started doing some theater in school. At some point, in high school, I got ahold of a VHS camcorder, and started making backyard movies.”
He got his hands on some editing technology and began editing his backyard epics. He was hooked. He started getting bookings to shoot people’s weddings. Things progressed from there. McCauley’s connection to Frank Smith came about around country music.
“We were working on another TV series called the Joey + Rory Show. Joey (Feek) has since passed away from cancer. I played a little role at the beginning of that show. It was a variety show of country music, and I played an Ed Sullivan sort of a character. Joey & Rory were performing at this venue called Music Ranch Montana.” Smith approached McCauley to express how much he loved the Joey + Rory Show. This led to collaborating on a few projects before Smith made a proposal.
Smith told McCauley he had an idea for a TV show, a program he wanted to make with McCauley’s team. “He presented us with something we jokingly called his manifesto. It was like 15-20 pages or something. It was his observations, over the course of his life and it was called ‘The Greatness of America: Facts in My Opinion.’ That is what became Reconnecting Roots.”
“Originally, we didn’t know if the show would be hosted. We sort of knew that host-driven shows made more sense, but it could have been more documentary-style. We decided to go with a host at the helm. I had done some acting and was sort-of just there. And it made sense from a budget perspective. Three seasons later, I’m still doing it.”
Smith has been happy with every facet of the show. McCauley says, “He has been one of the best people we have worked with. He has been over-the-moon about it. He is very hands-off in all the right ways. He lets us do our thing creatively even as we try to achieve his vision.”
McCauley’s Questions: With a manifesto in hand, McCauley’s vision was set. “The overarching principle and values were never in question. What was in question was how to do it well, what format to take, and who is our audience. Which we are still trying to figure out to some extent.”
When I point out that the show is, in a very, very subtle way, patriotic, not in a sense that ignores our flaws, but in a way that demonstrates our ability to overcome and transcend them, McCauley agrees. “I mean, if I could hire you right now to be our pitch person, I would. I am glad to hear you say that because that is exactly what we are trying to do.”
“We are careful to not go to any kind of extremes in that perspective. There is a difference between being nationalistic to a fault versus being patriotic. And we are proud of being American. There still are a lot of great things about America. At the same time, we wouldn’t do anything justice if we avoided pointing out the things that were not great.” McCauley credits our ability to solve our problems creatively as one of America’s greatest achievements.
McCauley defines his goals this way; “I forget where the quote comes from but it goes like this: Don’t strive to be your mentor, strive to be the person your mentor hoped to be like.”
The Show: At this point in our history, what we face is a loss of context. In a society where everything is so of-the-moment, we risk losing our sense of who we are. This is not a new problem. In the post-Vietnam-Watergate-Iran-hostage era, America was adrift, much like today. In 2023 America needs a statesman that can cast a vision for the country.
Reconnecting Roots takes an interesting approach. The mission statement is simple: Framing the Future Through the Past. The program aims to examine what was great (and not so great) about America, in order to chart a course for the days and years ahead. How do we know where to go if we don’t know who we are and where we have been?
What makes the show unique is its perspective on narrative. Reconnecting Roots does not strap itself to a chronological telling of history, its iconic figures, and grassroots movements. Instead, it jumps around from past to present connecting the dots to our present day in the hopes that viewers will take an interest in something other than the most recent fifteen minutes of infamy.
The show also mixes comedy with segments in which McCauley shifts from being the host to being an actor in humorous bits that illustrate a point. Moments like this keep the show from being an exercise in talking heads. Some of the bits work better than others, but overall, the experience keeps the viewer glued, not knowing where McCauley is going with the material. It also saves the program from falling into a “back in the day” mindset.
In three seasons the program has covered a wide array of topics, including our National Parks, Irish Immigrants, the importance of horses in the building of our nation, the creation of the railroads, religion, and religious persecution in America, and, of course, bourbon.
One of the more interesting aspects of the show involves its use of music. McCauley’s wife, Mandy, acts as musical director for Reconnecting Roots. The program has produced a vinyl album that connects past to present. On one side of the album are traditional recordings of songs in the public domain, and on the other side there are modern day re-imaginings of those songs. Often those new versions include new lyrics penned especially for the show.
While for some that would appear sacrilegious, it should be noted that traditional field hollers and blues songs recorded by various artists often were covers of other musicians, with very slightly different lyrics, each musician claiming songwriting credits. But here the purpose is not to steal the works of others but rather, to show how, with only slight variations, these songs speak to today.
There are also original compositions by songwriters that illustrate the theme of a particular episode. In connecting the viewer to music that would be called “Americana,” the show connects the viewer to themes that have defined America and its people. And there is another link in the music of Reconnecting Roots. Mandy McCauley often performs with the duo Firekid, comprised of Dillon Hodges and Heidi Feek, daughter of Rory Feek.
In the end, it all comes back to questions. Gabe McCauley puts it this way, “We are trying to create generational conversations. In our culture we are losing a lot of generational conversations, those we once turned to in order to learn from are being replaced by Google.”
Find it on your local PBS station, or at Reconnectingroots.com
