By Richard O Jones
Since the soundtrack from the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" began burning up the charts, the music world has been abuzz with the resurgence of bluegrass music.
Some insiders, however, wonder if a "resurgence" or a "revival" is the appropriate way to look at it.
"How can it be a resurgence if it hasn't 'surged' yet?" asked Emmylou Harris, one of the headliners on the Down From the Mountain tour stopping Tuesday at the Firstar Center in Cincinnati. "Was bluegrass music ever in the forefront?"
Her answer, clearly, is that it has not. She cites the career of Ralph Stanley, one of the legendary performers in the genre and also on the DFTM show, who "has made a living, almost literally, by selling records from the back of a station wagon."
But the soundtrack album has obviously warmed a national audience to bluegrass music. Not only did it go five times platinum ‹ meaning it sold more than 5 million copies ‹ it won an incredible nine Grammy awards (including Album of the Year) and was one of the top ten Billboard albums of 2001, the number one country album of the year.
"This music has been out there for a long time, but people never got a chance to hear it. (Because of the movie and record) a broader audience has gotten a whiff of it and was genuinely moved by it," Harris said. "Bluegrass is still not for everybody, but it's for more people than anybody ever thought."
The Down From the Mountain tour is a case in point.
The movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" directed by Joel and Ethan Coen ("Fargo," "Raising Arizona") and starring George Clooney, was released in December, 2000, loosely based on Homer's "Odyssey." The Coens and T Bone Burnett, the musical producer for both the movie and soundtrack, personally selected the music for the film after substantial research into music of the era. For "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" music was central to the plot, and in an unusual move in movie making, was recorded prior to filming.
"The reason for our using so much of the era's music in the movie was simple," Ethan Coen said in a prepared statement. "We have always liked it. The mountain music ... 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."
In May, 2000, Burnett and the Coen's produced an all-star concert featuring music from the film at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, former broadcasting site of the Grand Ol' Opry, which spawned another CD and a video ‹ and a follow-up concert at Carnegie Hall, New York City, in June, 2001.
"The response was so much greater than anyone expected," said Harris, who sang one song on the soundtrack and was featured in both concerts, they evolved into a series of shows. A 17-city first leg sold out nine shows. The second leg began June 25 in Louisville will hit 42 cities on its way to an Aug. 21 stop in Birmingham, Alabama. Rodney Crowell hosts the program, which features many of the artists on the original soundtrack as well as a veritable who's-who of bluegrass and traditional country music.
The line-up varies a little from city to city, but scheduled for the Firstar Concert, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, in addition to Harris, who will be backed up by Kate and Anna McGarrigle, are Alison Krauss & Union Station with Dan Tyminski and Jerry Douglas, Patty Loveless, Norman and Nancy Blake, the Whites, Nashville Bluegrass Band, Del McCoury Band, Chris Thomas King and Ricky Skaggs. Tickets are $29-$49, available at Ticketmaster locations or charge by phone, 562-4949.
In addition to the Down From the Mountain shows, however, bluegrass venues across the country are showing stronger numbers this year.
"I'm talking to people who have put on bluegrass festivals for 20 years and have struggled every year," said Tyminski, who sang on the movie soundtrack for the fictional Soggy Bottom Boys. "But this year they're beating their biggest crowds three times over."
But for the artists, it's business as usual ‹ just with a bigger splash.
"We're doing the same thing we've always done," Tyminski said. "We committed our lives to this music long before it was in fashion. The hunt for songs is endless and the quest for the perfect record continues."
According to one high-level insider, however, the soundtrack is not necessarily the cause of the bluegrass "surgence," but the result of it. Ricky Skaggs began his career in the Ralph Stanley band, but struck gold and platinum many times in the "new country" movement of the 1980's. In 1997, however, he gave up a lucrative new country career, formed his own label and returned to his acoustic bluegrass roots.
Skaggs said that he believes the interest in bluegrass really started in 1996 with the death of Bill Monroe, generally acknowledged as the father and caretaker of bluegrass music. Indeed, the term "bluegrass" has been taken from the name of his band, the Blue Grass Boys.
"When Mr. Monroe passed away, there was something about the passing of the originator of the music that sparked something in the nation," he said. "It made for more of an awareness and appreciation for what he did."
Skaggs said that although Monroe mellowed some in his last 10 or 15 years, he was always a stickler for purity in the music, frowned upon deviations.
His passing "let down the walls of protection for the music," Skaggs said. "Now people will take more chances, when before, if they'd ask Mr. Monroe about it, he could have been a little cruel in his answers back.
It was his relationship with Monroe that convinced Skaggs to return to what he calls "the music of my youth" after the death of his mentor.
"In his later years, we'd have him over to the house and love on him," he said. "We didn't really want anything from him other than to let him know that he was loved. I'd take him to lunch and we'd end up playing for hours and maybe say 10 words. I'd get up and he'd say, 'Well, I think we did good today.'
"I came back to (bluegrass music) because my heart was in it and because I made a commitment to Mr. Monroe and a commitment to myself.
"It's good to see millions of people beginning to realize what I've known all my life," Skaggs said.