Various Artists - O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Delivery Time: 7 to 15 Working Days Format: Music

It has been a decade since one of the most unlikely successes in music history was released. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is one of the 10 top-selling soundtracks of all time (according to the RIAA), the No. 1-selling soundtrack and the 17th biggest album of the 21st Century, with more than nine million albums sold. On August 23, UMe will celebrate this 10th Anniversary with an expanded two-CD set, O Brother, Where Art Thou? - Deluxe Edition, with legendary original producer T Bone Burnett personally involved in all aspects of this release.

The album that rocketed bluegrass, roots and even Americana music from the 20th Century into the new millennium features a 14-track bonus disc. Twelve of these newly-released songs were recorded during original sessions for the film, most of which went unheard on-screen. This release marks the first time these tracks have been made available in any format.

Produced by 12-time GRAMMY® Award- and Academy Award-winner T Bone Burnett, the original O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack from the 2000 film--written, directed and produced by the Coen Brothers and starring George Clooney--shot to No.1 on the Billboard Top 200 and Country charts and became a bona fide music phenomenon, despite scant radio airplay. Along with ALBUM OF THE YEAR honors, the album won GRAMMYs® for "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" performed by Dan Tyminski, Harley Allen and Pat Enright, and "O Death" by the legendary Dr. Ralph Stanley.

The second disc of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? - Deluxe Edition features artists who appeared on the original album (John Hartford, Norman Blake, the Fairfield Four, the Cox Family and the Peasall Sisters) plus some who did not (Colin Linden, Alan O'Bryant, Ed Lewis and Van Dyke Parks). The disc's previously recorded tracks are "Tom Devil" by Ed Lewis and the Prisoners, and "I'll Fly Away" by the Kossoy Sisters.
The best soundtracks are like movies for the ears, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? joins the likes of Saturday Night Fever and The Harder They Come as cinematic pinnacles of song. The music from the Coen brothers' Depression-era film taps into the source from which the purest strains of country, blues, bluegrass, folk, and gospel music flow. Producer T Bone Burnett enlists the voices of Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris, Ralph Stanley, and kindred spirits for performances of traditional material, in arrangements that are either a cappella or feature bare-bones accompaniment. Highlights range from the aching purity of Krauss's "Down to the River to Pray" to the plainspoken faith of the Whites' "Keep on the Sunny Side" to Stanley's chillingly plaintive "O Death." The album's spiritual centerpiece finds Krauss, Welch, and Harris harmonizing on "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby," a gospel lullaby that sounds like a chorus of Appalachian angels. --Don McLeese