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O Brother, Where Art Thou?

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?
 
 
O Brother, Where Art Thou?  is a 2000 adventure film starring George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson, with John Goodman, Holly Hunter, and Charles Durning in supporting roles.  Set in 1937 rural Mississippi during the Great Depression, the film’s story is a modern satire loosely based on Homer’s epic poem, Odyssey.  Much of the music used in the film is period folk music, including that of Virginia bluegrass singer Ralph Stanley.  The movie was one of the first to extensively use digital color correction, to give the film an autumnal, sepia-tinted look.  The film received positive reviews, and the American folk music soundtrack won a Grammy for Album of the Year in 2001.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

The first Bob Dylan album, Bob Dylan was released with great fanfare by Columbia Records in March 1962; it is a relatively conventional folk album that is not unlike those that Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Peter, Paul and Mary were recording at the time, with just two original songs.  The album was produced by John H. Hammond, the legendary talent scout who signed Bob Dylan to Columbia.  Though excellent in every way – for instance, the album includes “Man of Constant Sorrow”, the song (as performed by the Soggy Bottom Boys, with George Clooney on lead vocals) that was made famous in the 2000 Coen Brothers film O Brother, Where Art Thou? – Bob Dylan sold just 5,000 copies initially; and Columbia Records executives began grumbling about Dylan’s being “Hammond’s folly”. 

 

(June 2013/2)

 

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One of the recordings by Alan Lomax, a haunting performance of “Po’ Lazarus” by a black prison chain gang from 1955, was featured in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?. 

 

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On the first LP by Peter, Paul and Mary, Peter, Paul and Mary (1962), Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey are said to have written “Sorrow” (better known by its full name “Man of Constant Sorrow” or “Maid of Constant Sorrow” and dating from 1913, both Bob Dylan and Judy Collins recorded it in the same time period, and “Man of Constant Sorrow” was also prominently featured in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?). 
 
(February 2015)