|
There
is another Nashville, with a kind of music so distant
from what the city's commercial center cranks out
as to be from a different planet. It thrives in the
community's nooks and crannies like a cluster of quietly
smiling mountain wildflowers in the shadow of those
cultivated hothouse blooms that flaunt their colors
on radio stations from coast to coast.
The
soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? -- indeed
the film, itself - celebrates this gentle music. Writer/directors
Joel and Ethan Coen call it "folk music."
Eric Fellner, the film's producer, calls it "bluegrass
music." Terms such as "roots" and "Southern
vernacular" are bandied about to describe it.
But what this seemingly ethnic sound is, is "country
music." Or at least it was before the infidels
of Music Row expropriated that term to describe watered-down
pop/rock with greeting-card lyrics.
This
original country sound first flowered during the Depression,
the era that frames O Brother, Where Art Thou? It
was fertilized by blues, gospel, string-band hoedowns,
Appalachian balladry, work songs and vaudeville hokum.
Its practitioners were small-time entertainers who
led itinerant lives as they traveled from one schoolhouse
show to the next, from one radio "barn dance"
to the next, from one makeshift recording studio to
another.
Despite
the hard economic times, record companies and radio
stations discovered an enormous hunger for the homey
sounds of The Carter Family, the rowdy blues of Jimmie
Rodgers, the saucy humor of Uncle Dave Macon, the
dazzling fiddling of Arthur Smith and the scintillating
blues moans of countless slide guitarists, harmonica
men and jug-band songsters. That hunger for emotional
truth gave us our multi-million dollar music industry.
The
razzmatazz of western swing, the whipped-dog whine
of honky-tonk music, the creamy crooning of singing
cowboys, the itchy-pants yelp of rockabilly and the
suburban gleam of The Nashville Sound seemed to drown
out the innocence of this rustic, acoustic kind of
country. But it has survived. Now called "old-time
music" this style thrives at the more than 500
bluegrass festivals, fiddle contests and folk gatherings
that are staged every year in America. It is recorded
or performed by young people virtually every night
in Music City, U.S.A.
You
won't hear it on "country" radio. And it
flies beneath the commercial radar of most record
shops. So for those whose musical tastes are shaped
by the great, gray behemoth that is the modern entertainment
business, this music does sound obscure. Even exotic.
It
was this sound that the Coen brothers and record producer
T Bone Burnett came in search of on a scouting trip
to Tennessee's capital city in the spring of 1999.
With the help of Denise Stiff and Gillian Welch they
found a troupe of people eager to recreate the ethos
of the 1930s - The Whites, Alison Krauss & Union
Station, John Hartford, Ralph Stanley, the Fairfield
Four, Emmylou Harris, The Cox Family, Norman Blake
and The Nashville Bluegrass Band were among the talents
who marched forward for this extraordinary project.
Several of them even wound up on screen.
Before
a single frame of film was shot, these musicians and
others created the "canvas" upon which the
colorful saga of O Brother, Where Art Thou? would
be painted.
"The
reason for our using so much of the era's music in
the movie was simple," explains Ethan Coen. "We
have always liked it. The mountain music, the delta
blues, gospel, the chain-gang chants, would later
evolve into bluegrass, commercial country music and
rock 'n' roll. But it is compelling music in its own
right, harking back to a time when music was a part
of everyday life and not something performed by celebrities.
That folk aspect of the music both accounts for its
vitality and makes it fold naturally into our story
without feeling forced or theatrical."
"Music
became a very prominent feature very early on in the
[script]writing," adds Joel Coen, "and it
became even more so as we went along. There are very
few scenes in the movie that don't have an in-screen
musical element to them.
"Both
Ethan and I are long-time listeners to and fans of
this music. It began to take over the script as we
went on, until the film became almost a musical. It
establishes the tone and the flavor."
Indeed,
the music is practically a cinematic character in
itself. Hillbilly and blues sounds underscore what
is easily the Coen brothers' warmest film.
It
all works brilliantly, both within the context of
the film and outside it as a listening experience.
And what also counts is that this soundtrack delivers
the message that old-time music is very much alive.
It speaks to us as vividly today as it did to listeners
generations ago. You might not hear it on the radio,
but you'll feel it in your heart. O Brother, Where
Art Thou? will see to that.
|
