The Coen Brothers classic that inspired an entire generation of musicians: “The scene just exploded”
In 2000, the Coen brothers released a musical comedy-drama based on Homer’s The Odyssey. Naturally, because the Coens are the Coens, their version of the epic Greek poem was weird as hell and nothing like the more traditionally epic version Christopher Nolan will be serving up in 2026. Instead, it was set in rural Mississippi in 1937 and follows three escaped convicts searching for hidden treasure who somehow become folk music stars along the way. The movie’s soundtrack was filled with old and new folk and bluegrass songs, and against all the odds, it became arguably more beloved than the movie itself. In fact, it’s been said that it inspired an entire generation of current musicians.
The Coens have always been truly unique filmmakers. They have unparalleled skill when it comes to looking at genre fare from an off-kilter angle, and their offbeat crime thrillers and comedies are second to none. They outdid themselves with O Brother, Where Art Thou? though, a film with so many weird elements that it seemed destined to be an arthouse curio, at best. Instead, it was a commercial success and is now seen as one of their most beloved efforts, with George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Turturro’s ‘Soggy Bottom Boys’ being three of their most popular protagonists.
However, the Coens’ truest stroke of genius on O Brother was their choice to involve iconic musician T Bone Burnett in the process incredibly early. He began working on music for the film while the brothers were still writing the script, which meant the soundtrack was recorded before day one of the shoot. While the music used was all period-specific bluegrass, folk, gospel, and blues, aside from Harry McClintock’s ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain,’ Burnett re-recorded the songs with an array of modern musicians. The most famous song was ‘Man of Constant Sorrow,’ which won a Grammy for ‘Best Country Collaboration with Vocals.’
Ultimately, the film made $76million at the worldwide box office, was reviewed strongly, and notched two Oscar nominations. However, it was in the year or two after release that the soundtrack album continued to live on, hitting number one on the Billboard 200 and spending a mammoth 20 weeks on the Billboard Top Country Albums Chart. It wound up selling more than 8million copies in the US alone – and this cultural ubiquity introduced a vintage style of music to an entire generation of youngsters who would grow up to become famous in their own right.
For instance, Grammy-nominated bluegrass artist and banjo player Molly Tuttle told The Bluegrass Situation, “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.”
She revealed that her father was a bluegrass teacher, and when the film came out, he had an influx of new students, leading her to remark, “It’s had a lasting impact on the popularity of bluegrass music. But I was so young that I didn’t know many of the musicians on the soundtrack by name, so it introduced me to a lot of artists who later became my favourites.”
Dave Wilson of Chatham County Line revealed that he was already playing small gigs with his bluegrass band when the movie came out. To his amazement, “the scene just exploded.” The film functioned as a “huge advertisement out there in the world for the style of music we were playing. We definitely noticed a change. There were more strangers coming to see us play gigs, and they were really excited about it.”
Amusingly, he admitted several concertgoers asked the band to play ‘Man of Constant Sorrow,’ seemingly assuming it was an old bluegrass song that anyone could play and not a tune written specifically for the movie. “We never played it,” Wilson chuckled. “We didn’t know how. It would have probably shut them up if we had!”
Folk singer-songwriter Sam Amidon was adamant that O, Brother Where Art Thou? was the first Hollywood mass-media production that treated the music he loved in a non-clichéd manner. “Nothing had depicted this stuff on this scale before,” he mused. “Before then, if you told somebody you played banjo, they would think Deliverance. That was their frame of reference. For O Brother to do it without messing it up was a miracle.”
Amidon felt O Brother introduced newcomers to “different corners of American music” beyond simply bluegrass and blues, which was undeniably “a very positive thing.” He marvelled, “O Brother pointed to all of these different areas. It’s singing games and banjo songs and all these different things. O Brother is weirdly inclusive. It cast a wide net.” In the long run, that wide net surely ensnared an entire generation of artists in the making.
