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Friday, August 16, 2002

By John Hayes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

"O Brother Where Art Thou?" may be changing the nature of bluegrass, but there's actually very little bluegrass on the soundtrack. It's a diverse anthology of acoustic, old-time mountain music from the fringes of blues, gospel, country, folk, bluegrass and evolved remnants of Scottish ballads.

	Audio Samples Here are samples of two songs from each of the old time music anthologies reviewed by PG Music Writer John Hayes: Ralph Stanley sings "O Death" from the motion picture soundtrack "O Brother, Where Art Thou." (399K MP3) Allison Krauss sings "Down by the River to Pray" from "O Brother, Where Art Thou." (470K MP3) The Carter Family, which helped invent country music, recounts the Biblical tale of "Little Moses" in a 1929 recording on the "Anthology of American Folk Music." (469K MP3) Mississippi John Hurt, a tenant farmer who provided the foundation for future blues and folk artists, sings the tale of a woman who must pay the price for killing her cheating husband in "Frankie," recorded in 1928 and included in the "Anthology of American Folk Music." (467K MP3) A recent version of Doc Watson's "Black Mountain Rag" is included in the Country section of "American Roots Music." (469K MP3) Woody Guthrie sings "This Land is Your Land," recorded in 1944, in the Folk section of "American Roots Music." (456K MP3) The album "May The Circle Be Unbroken," released in 1972, was a breakthrough bluegrass album, introducing a new generation to artists like fiddler Vassar Clements and banjo player Earl Scriggs, here performing the "Orange Blossom Special." (469K MP3) The "Circle" disc opens with the "Grand Ole Opry Song." A digitally remastered version of "Circle" was released in March. (417K MP3) In one of the last appearances before his death, John Hartford emceed a live performance by the artists from the "O Brother" soundtrack at the theater that once housed the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. He sang the classic folk song "Big Rock Candy Mountain" for the disc produced from the show, "Down From the Mountain." (470K MP3) Gillian Welch and David Rawlings had some fun with the tongue-in-cheek "I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll," also on "Down From the Mountain." (469K MP3) Download MP3 players at: Real Player Windows Media Player WinAMP

Ironically, Rounder Records' "O Sister: The Women's Bluegrass Collection," rushed onto the market to capitalize on the "O Brother" boom, has little common ground. But if you like "O Brother" and the idea of anthologies that explore American roots music, these collections are essential:

"The Anthology of American Folk Music,"
(Smithsonian Folkways Recordings)

Without this album, our culture would sound different than it does today. It's the collection that started the Greenwich Village folk revival that spawned Bob Dylan who changed the way we listen to popular music which changed the way the industry spoon-feeds it to us.

The 84-song anthology was compiled in 1952 by vagrant amateur musicologist Harry Smith. One of the first records to use the LP format, it was a marginally legal bootleg of previously released commercial recordings from the 1920s and '30s.

Production qualities are what you might expect from recordings of that era, but the music is the real deal -- authentic sounds coaxed out of musicians who literally came down from the mountain. These are the people who inspired the B.B. Kings and Woody Guthries of the world, obscure artists whose music outlived them because of this anthology. It's Clarence Ashley before Doc Watson joined the band, Blind Lemon Jefferson before other bluesmen walked into a studio, The Carter Family before they made their mark. Some of the ballads trace their heritage to the British Isles, and the early songs of social protest became a template for the socially conscious music of the '50s and '60s.

Now packaged as an enhanced six-disc boxed set, it comes with an educational 68-page book that guides you through the music, as well as the original Folkways Records directory.

"American Roots Music"
(Palm Pictures)

Perhaps the most inclusive collection of the origins of modern music, this anthology is a collaboration of PBS, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Country Music Hall of Fame and the label that released it. Instead of presenting the music as a collection of old songs, the four-disc "American Roots" tracks the music's evolution from early recordings of its roots to the styles those roots have spawned.

Disc 1 follows traditional country music from the Carter Family and Uncle Dave Macon to Lefty Frizzell and Kitty Wells. Doc Watson's "Black Mountain Rag" is a standout. One cut by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones shows were Fleck's invention of contemporary banjo jazz defected from the country ranks. The blues disc has it all: James Cotton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf, Son House, B.B. King. It ends with Keb Mo's attempt to start the cycle all over again.

Disc 3 starts with a half-dozen old-timey gospel tunes and jumps to folk, tracing the movement from Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'." The fourth CD covers Cajun/zydeco, Tejano and Native American music.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken"
(Capitol)

Before Jerry Garcia and David Grisman built the bridge that led hippies from jam rock to progressive bluegrass, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was exploring the roots beneath the burgeoning country-rock movement. In an unmitigated display of gall, the longhairs invited some of the gray-haired creators of bluegrass music to record an album with them: Earl Scruggs, Vassar Clements, Doc Watson, Mother Maybelle Carter, Roy Acuff and others.

"Will the Circle Be Unbroken" broke down generational barriers and quickly became and remains one of the standards by which bluegrass music is measured. Its 40 songs are less diverse than some collections, though it swings slightly to the bluesy and country sides. "Circle" was risky and experimental for its time, and some of the banjo picking, particularly on "Orange Blossom Special" and "Earl's Breakdown," is classic.

This year, on its 30th anniversary, "Circle" was reissued as an enhanced two-disc collection with several previously unreleased songs. In 1989, the Dirt Band invited Johnny Cash, Levon Helm, Emmylou Harris, Chet Atkins, John Prine and others to join them on a "Vol. 2" disc. "Vol. 3" includes Dwight Yokum, Iris Dement, Sam Bush, Tom Petty and Willie Nelson.

"Down From the Mountain"
(Lost Highway)

Happy accidents don't often happen in the music business. When they do, they're inevitably followed by an onslaught of copycat recordings. At least this one gives the credit where it's due.

On the heels of "O Brother," filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen and producer T Bone Burnett booked some of the artists from the original soundtrack into Nashville's Ryman Auditorium and hired documentarian D.A. Pennybaker to film the concert for posterity. That show and this album became the origin of the Down From the Mountain tour.

Careful to keep "Down From the Mountain" from becoming "O Brother" live, Burnett included only three songs that are on the soundtrack, and they sound strikingly different. It's the diversity in styles and the artists that are the same. In one of his last performances, John Hartford puts his unique spin on "Big Rock Candy Mountain." Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch have another crack at "I'll Fly Away," while Welch and David Rawlings have fun with "I Want to Play that Rock and Roll." Chris Thomas King and Colin Linden set fire to "John Law Burned Down the Liquor Sto'," and The Cox Family, The Whites and Emmylou Harris bring their voices to several old-timey tunes.

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John Hayes can be reached at jhayes@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1991.