Jun 2001

You've seen the film, loved the music, well buy the soundtrack, it's an excellent hoe-down featuring a musical mix of country and bluegrass with the likes of Alison Krauss, The Soggy Bottom Boys, Norman Blake, Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch. 'O Brother…' is a truly wonderful film with an even better soundtrack that has single-handedly introduced bluegrass music to a whole new audience, and is one of our best selling soundtracks that's easily up there with 'Deliverance'.

• Rolling Stone (1/03/02, p.119) - Ranked #9 in Rolling Stone's "Top 10 2001".
  Mojo (6/02, p.68) - Included in Mojo's "100 Coolest Movie Soundtracks".
  Entertainment Weekly (10/12/01, p.38) - Ranked #56 in EW's "100 Best Movie Soundtracks" - "...An unlikely hillbilly smash making 1930s-style string-band music the 1st trend of the 21st-century..."
  Mojo (1/02, p.70) - Ranked #3 in Mojo's "Best [10] Box Sets & Compilations of 2001".
  Rolling Stone (1/18/01, pp.56-7) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...A collection of folk, bluegrass, gospel and hobo country so true to the music's down-home, egalitarian roots that it's hard to distinguish the old tracks from the new and the folk heroes from screen actors..."
  Q (12/00, p.139) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Mostly traditional spirituals and bluegrass numbers....richly evocative of its time and place, and educational too..."
  No Depression (1-2/01, p.90) - "...The rarest of contemporary soundtracks: good (old) music, coherently programmed, and masterfully perfromed....an exceptional album..."
• Rolling Stone (1/03/02, p.119) - Ranked #9 in Rolling Stone's "Top 10 2001".
  Rolling Stone (1/18/01, pp.56-7) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...A collection of folk, bluegrass, gospel and hobo country so true to the music's down-home, egalitarian roots that it's hard to distinguish the old tracks from the new and the folk heroes from screen actors..."
  Entertainment Weekly (10/12/01, p.38) - Ranked #56 in EW's "100 Best Movie Soundtracks" - "...An unlikely hillbilly smash making 1930s-style string-band music the 1st trend of the 21st-century..."
  Q (12/00, p.139) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Mostly traditional spirituals and bluegrass numbers....richly evocative of its time and place, and educational too..."
  Mojo (6/02, p.68) - Included in Mojo's "100 Coolest Movie Soundtracks".
  Mojo (1/02, p.70) - Ranked #3 in Mojo's "Best [10] Box Sets & Compilations of 2001".
  No Depression (1-2/01, p.90) - "...The rarest of contemporary soundtracks: good (old) music, coherently programmed, and masterfully perfromed....an exceptional album..."

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.
Includes a 24-page booklet with liner notes by Robert K. Oermann.
O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? won the 2002 Grammy Awards for Album Of The Year and for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media. "O Death" won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals.
Those kings of cinematic quirkiness, the Coen brothers, fashioned their film O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? as a contemporary adaption of Homer's Odyssey, centering around a group of American chain-gang prisoners. The film's earthy Southern setting makes it a natural for a bluegrass-oriented soundtrack, for which producer T-Bone Burnett picked the cream of the country crop.
"Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby," for example, is a summit meeting of some of the finest contemporary female country vocalists (Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris, and Alison Krauss). The old school isn't forgotten either, as evidenced by a chilling a cappella rendering of "O Death," courtesy of Ralph Stanley, and by the closing cut, where the Stanley Brothers issue an elegant plea to heaven with "Angel Band."