In the late '20s a team of record company talent scouts toured America with a recording machine and for the first time captured the raw expression of an emerging culture. Jack White, T. Bone Burnett and Robert Redford have teamed up as executive producers of a three-part documentary about those important days in the burgeoning music industry as well as an accompanying feature film and series of recordings called American Epic that will debut this fall as per Pitchfork.

The three-part documentary will air on PBS & BBC Arena this fall and finds British filmmakers Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty, as well as American Producer Duke Erikson "follow the machine’s trail across the United States to rediscover the families whose music was recorded by it, music that would lead to the development of blues, country, gospel, Hawaiian, Cajun and folk music – without which there would be no rock, pop, R&B or hip hop today. Over three episodes the remarkable lives of these seminal musicians are revealed through previously unseen film footage, unpublished photographs, and exclusive interviews with some of the last living witnesses to that era, when the musical strands of a diverse nation first emerged, sparking a cultural revolution whose reverberations are felt to this day."

The feature film American Epic Sessions has producers replicating the equipment used in those 1920s field recordings for today's artists to record on straight to wax, using all the original microphones, amplifiers, and other equipment from that era. According to a press release, "this is the first time that any performer has been able to use this machinery for over 80 years." Here's the impressive list of artists whose performances are featured in American Epic Sessions: Alabama Shakes, The Americans, The Avett Brothers, Beck, Frank Fairfield, Ana Gabriel, Rhiannon Giddens, Merle Haggard, Bobby Ingano, Elton John, Auntie Geri Kuhia, Pokey LaFarge, Bettye LaVette, Los Lobos, Lost Bayou Ramblers, Taj Mahal, Steve Martin & Edie Brickell, Fred Martin & The Levite Camp, Ashley Monroe, Nas, Willie Nelson, Charlie Kaleo Oyama, Blind Boy Paxton, Raphael Saadiq and Jack White.

Watch a trailer for American Epic:

Pitchfork reports music from both movies will be separately released and that White's Third Man Records is also working on a vinyl box set.