At the height of the Roaring Twenties, music scouts and their new technology scoured the rural corners of America in search of the music of everyday folk. This is the never-before-told story of the first time America heard itself.

At the height of the Roaring Twenties, music scouts armed with cutting-edge recording technology set out across America to capture the unknown voices of everyday folk. The recordings they made captured the country's diversity - artistically, ethnically, geographically, and economically. As told by music pioneers, their families and eyewitnesses to the era, we travel back in time to the 'Big Bang' of modern popular music, to the first time America heard itself. Everyday Americans heard their own music for the very first time, pure and unadulterated-this was a democratic revolution that would reverberate around the world.

In search of the next big sellers, at the height of the Roaring Twenties music scouts from America's big record companies traversed the woods, hills, mountains and bayous of America - from the foothills in New York to the swamps of Louisiana. Putting out an open call for musicians, they set up shop in the biggest cities and allowed all comers to record, live, with their brand-new, cutting-edge lathe machine, writing the songs directly to wax discs. The recordings that they made captured the country's diversity - ethnically, artistically, geographically, economically - and for the first time, America heard itself, singing to escape the hard lives of cotton fields and coal mines. These music pioneers started a "big bang", and in the years to come, artists like the Carter Family, Will Shade, and the Memphis Jug Band would lead the country into a world-changing musical revolution. Morphing into new forms like church gospel choirs, raucous street-side bands, and blues that used any nearby items as instruments, the music quickly spread around the country and beyond its borders. Its popularity only fueled the search for more, and new genres were born almost overnight - genres that directly inspired many legendary modern musicians. Now, decades later, forgotten names on battered wax discs come back to life, as the filmmakers from American Epic cross 35 states over several years - tracking down some of the original musicians, family members, friends and eyewitnesses who were there to watch it all happen. With restored, never-before-used footage, photographs and audio, as well as new personal interviews (some of which are the last the person ever gave), The Big Bang is a celebration of America's rich musical heritage, and is the first part of a trilogy that Robert Redford calls "America's greatest untold story".—Lo-Max Films