On this day (December 5) in 2000, the soundtrack from O Brother Where Art Thou was released. Produced by T-Bone Burnett, the album contains a combination of blues, bluegrass, gospel, country, and Appalachian folk music. It won multiple Grammy and CMA Awards and has since been certified 8x Platinum by the RIAA. Maybe more importantly, it introduced millions of listeners and moviegoers to the history of American roots music.
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The soundtrack included artists and songs that were largely unknown to mainstream listeners at the time. For instance, the list of contributors includes Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, the Stanley Brothers, Harry McClintock, Emmylou Harris, and Norman Blake. Additionally, Dan Tyminski provided vocals on the album’s most popular cut, “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow.”
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The success of the album made stars of these relatively obscure roots music heavy-hitters. Additionally, it showed younger musicians that finding success with old-time music was possible.
In 2002, it won the Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Best Country Collaboration with Vocals (“I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow”), and Best Male Country Vocal Performance (“O, Death”). It also won big at the CMA Awards, taking home Album of the Year and Single of the Year (“I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow”). The soundtrack won Album of the Year and Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year (“I’ll Fly Away”) at the International Bluegrass Music Awards.
The Lasting Impact of the O Brother, Where Art Thou Soundtrack
Many roots music artists got huge career boosts after appearing on the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. For instance, Gillian Welch’s 2001 album Time (The Revelator) was her breakthrough release.
“O Brother is basically my record collection cherry-picked and turned into a soundtrack,” she told Rolling Stone. “After O Brother, what happened was my kind of weird, freakish musical existence became this little tributary that fed into the mainstream. And over the course of a couple years, and now, a couple of decades, it has not really gone away. I’m not so much of a freak anymore.”
Contemporary bluegrass sensation Molly Tuttle was among the artists who spoke to Bluegrass Situation about the soundtrack’s lasting impact for a 2001 feature. “The movie came out when I was seven years old, and I remember my dad showing it to me when I was in grade school. I loved it, and the music really stuck with me because I already had an affinity for bluegrass and old-time music,” she recalled. “Seeing it performed in a movie was new and exciting. My dad teaches bluegrass for a living, and when the movie came out, he had an influx of new students.”
A-list mandolin player Sierra Hull also spoke on the film and soundtrack’s impact. “I grew up in a little town with maybe 900 people, and there used to be a poster section at the Walmart in the next town over. You could flip through the posters, and there would be pop stars like Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. I was always convinced that one day I would find an Alison Krauss poster in there,” she recalled. “So it was cool when O Brother came out and elevated some of those people who were already giants to me, like Alison and Dan Tyminski and Ralph Stanley,” she added.
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