You are hereAlbum Review: Various Artists - O Brother, Where Art Thou? Deluxe Edition (Universal)
Album Review: Various Artists - O Brother, Where Art Thou? Deluxe Edition (Universal)
It is without question that the soundtrack to the Coen Brothers 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? brought bluegrass and other roots musics to a much wider audience, selling in excess of nine million copies and influencing an incalculable number of new singers and musicians who have since made their name in the Americana genre. Not since Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde film of 1967 did we hear so many banjos on the soundtrack. We tend to remember Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch's contributions to the soundtrack, both of whose music became much more sought after in the wake of the movie release over ten years ago. Who could also forget Alison Krauss's Union Station band mate Dan Tyminski's I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow, under the guise of the 'Soggy Bottom Boys'? These and all the other songs from the original soundtrack release are here in the same order.
The deluxe edition features a dozen additional songs, recorded during the original sessions for the film but until now unheard, together with a couple of extra songs from the archives, The Kossoy Sisters with Erik Darling and their version of I'll Fly Away and the work song Tom Devil by Ed Lewis and the Prisoners. The previously unreleased songs include Colin Linden's guitar instrumental Hard Time Killing Floor Blues, the late John Hartford's violin instrumentals Tishamingo Blues and Hogfoot, a couple of versions of Big Rock Candy Mountain firstly a piano instrumental by the legendary Van Dyke Parks and secondly a guitar instrumental by Norman Blake as well as a couple more bluegrass/gospel songs from The Cox Family, Keep on the Sunny Side and In the Highways.
Overseen once again by original producer T Bone Burnett, this deluxe edition celebrates ten years of growing enthusiasm for excellent period-specific folk music, which hopefully will introduce yet another generation to bluegrass, gospel, roots and Americana.
Allan Wilkinson
Northern Sky
