Remember When 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' Surprised the Music Industry

December 5, 2000

Videos by American Songwriter

In a time when the biggest hits out of Hollywood were Harry Potter, Pearl Harbor, and the Jurassic Park movies, it made no sense a relatively low-budget, offbeat comedy version of The Odyssey by Homer would be on anyone’s list of movies to see. But this was a Coen brothers project, and they were coming off offbeat successes like The Big Lebowski and Fargo.

The Soundtrack

T Bone Burnett was brought in to produce the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which was set in Mississippi during the Great Depression. The Coen brothers wanted the music to reflect that.

In an interview, Joel Coen told Charlie Rose, “All of the music in the movie is traditional American music from the ’20s and ’30s and some of it from the ’40s. It’s really American roots music. It’s the foundation of what’s now country music, rock ‘n’ roll, pop music, gospel, and blues.”

Songs were gathered, and music that was to be recorded for the film was captured before filming began. Music was a central component of the movie, not just a backdrop or an afterthought. Artists like Alison Krauss, The Fairfield Four, The Peasall Sisters, The Whites, Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris, The Cox Family, John Hartford, and Ralph Stanley were recruited for the soundtrack.

The Single

I am a man of constant sorrow
I’ve seen trouble all my days
I bid farewell to ol’ Kentucky
The place where I was born and raised
The place where he was born and raised

“I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” was initially pitched by Burnett to be used as a song for “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski, but it ended up not being used. Burnett realized it was a perfect fit for the main character. The song goes back to 1913 when similar lyrics were published in an R.D. Burnett songbook as “Farewell Song.” The Stanley Brothers recorded it several times, once in 1950 and again in 1959. Initially, the plan was to have the star of the movie, George Clooney, sing the song. With Clooney’s musical lineage, the film’s producers arranged a recording session.

Clooney told TNT, “So, I did try to sing in O Brother, here’s the thing. There’s a wonderful music producer named T Bone Burnett. And T Bone assumed, because my last name was Clooney, that I could sing. The Coen brothers assumed that I could sing. And, quite honestly, I assumed that I could sing. So, they sent me the tape for ‘Man of Constant Sorrow,’ which is, in fairness, a very difficult song.

“And, we went down to the recording studio in Memphis, and we all sat in the recording studio, and everybody’s there, and I went into the glass booth, and I wailed away, and thought I was great,” he continued. “I finished, and I looked up through the glass. No one would look me in the eyes. … I walked out and was like, ‘How did it go?’ and they were like, ‘Oh, yeah,’ and they didn’t want to tell me it sucks because I’m the lead in their movie, you know, ‘No, it’s good, it’s good. Let’s play it back.’ And they were hoping if I hear it, you know, I would know it’s terrible. And they started playing it, and it just sounds like a cat being run over by a semi. … I told them to bring in their singer, and they brought in a guy named Dan Tyminski, who did a wonderful job. And I got to lip-sync to him through the thing, but yes, I had high hopes of singing on that one.”

Harley Allen and Pat Enright were brought in to supply the additional vocals. The song was not immediately embraced on country radio. It sold slowly at first but had a very long chart life. It won a Grammy, a CMA Award, an IBMA Award, and peaked at No. 35 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. It eventually sold more than a million copies.

According to music executive Luke Lewis, “T Bone believed forever that it was a radio hit on all formats, and I think he was right. I think it would up getting much more airplay a year later than it did when it was current, you know? People finally realized that, yeah, sure, it sounds retro, but it’s a hit. So, it’s a freak hit.”

The Album

The album shocked everyone and hit the top spot on the Billboard Hot 200. It won the Album of the Year Award at the CMA Awards, ACM Awards, IBMA Awards, and Grammy Awards. Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch won the Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year Grammy for “I’ll Fly Away.”

Host Jon Stewart told everyone to buy the album during the Grammy telecast. It seemed that everyone already had. The soundtrack album has sold more than 8 million copies.

Down from the Mountain

On May 24, 2000, a concert was held at The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville as a fundraiser for the Country Music Hall of Fame. It featured performers from O Brother, Where Art Thou. The rehearsals and concert were filmed and included in the Down from the Mountain documentary. The soundtrack album from that movie reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Country Albums chart and won the Best Traditional Folk Album Grammy Award in 2002.