07/05/02
John Soeder
Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic
Clarkston, Mich. -
"I'm going to tell you what's the truth - I don't know where I'm at," he admits.
The banjo-playing singer is nursing a cup of coffee before a gig on the outskirts of Detroit, where the stars of the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack brought their "Down From the Mountain" roadshow last week. They'll headline a pavilion-only concert Sunday at Blossom Music Center.
It's no wonder Stanley has lost his bearings. The "O Brother" phenomenon has been one wild ride.
Steeped in the traditional twang of bluegrass, folk, gospel and other rootsy musical styles, the soundtrack to the 2000 film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (starring George Clooney and directed by brothers Joel and Ethan Coen) has sold 6 million copies. It won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year honors and a Best Country Male Vocal Performance trophy for the 75-year-old Stanley - his first Grammy.
It all adds up to a chart-topping, head-scratching, convention-bucking, highly unlikely smash.
As Chris Thomas King puts it: "We're in unknown territory here."
Three hours before showtime at the DTE Energy Music Theater, musicians are tuning fiddles and banjos while roadies unload upright basses. A sign outside the backstage commissary reads: MASSAGES AVAILABLE ON BACK DECK - STAGE RIGHT. Emmylou Harris is off in a quiet corner, rehearsing the Louvin Brothers chestnut "If I Could Only Win Your Love."
"Sometimes things come through the back door in the music business," says King, a blues-loving singer-guitarist who appears on the "O Brother" album and in the movie, in the role of bluesman Tommy Johnson.
King remembers standing onstage with the rest of the "O Brother" musical cast at the Grammy ceremony in February and thinking: "How do you like us now?" It was a "poetic" moment, he says. "The mainstream gatekeepers . . . tried to lock us out. These days, music is so categorized and the formats on radio are so rigid."
"O Brother" broke the mold with "pure music from the soul," King says. "Now everybody wants to know the secret, so they can duplicate it. I really don't think there's a formula to it. The way it was done and what it said to people were very genuine, not manufactured."
Harris has heard the same questions - How? Why? - on countless occasions. But the veteran vocalist is at a loss to explain the multiplatinum appeal of "O Brother."
Roots music has "inspired me throughout my whole career," Harris says. "People didn't have a chance to hear it before on a grand scale. It was only on at 2 a.m. on public radio every other Sunday - do you know what I mean? It was hidden away.
"I always thought if people got a chance to hear it, they would respond to it. But even in my wildest dreams, I never thought it would be this big. . . . It's like the guy in Shakespeare in Love' said - It's a mystery.' "
Bob Neuwirth believes otherwise. "I don't think there's any mystery about it," he says. "The music has to do with the basics of love, death and God. All great art - whether it's opera, epic poetry, novels, paintings, whatever - is hung on those basic themes."
Neuwirth, an Akron native, toured with Bob Dylan in the 1960s and '70s. He now serves as music director of the "Down From the Mountain" tour.
The "O Brother" musicians gathered in May 2000 for a concert at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, recorded for posterity by way of the documentary film "Down From the Mountain" and a live album of the same name. Next came a performance last year at Carnegie Hall in New York City, then a 17-city tour this past winter and now a 41-city summer tour.
There is even talk of making this an annual outing. What Vans Warped is to punk and Ozz- Fest is to heavy metal, "Down From the Mountain" could become for fans of down-home, acoustic music.
"Why should people come to see this show? Because it's good, honest, American music, played from the heart," Neuwirth says. "You don't need a $10,000 suit or a $200 haircut to make this music. You don't need fancy lighting. You don't even need electricity."
The "Down From the Mountain" caravan includes 12 buses, but only one truck for equipment. "No drums, no amps - that's the secret," Neuwirth says.
The suburban Detroit show draws nearly 9,000 people. They clap their hands in time when the Nashville Bluegrass Band kicks off the concert with the chain-gang chant "Po Lazarus." They sing along with the husband-and-wife duo of Norman and Nancy Blake on "You Are My Sunshine." And they hoot and holler when Dan Tyminski croons "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow."
Out in the crowd, a young girl and her grandfather do-si-do in the fading daylight.
"We've got a lot of talent tonight. . . . We're a regular cornucopia of advanced musicality," says singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, the show's master of ceremonies.
Also on the bill are Alison Krauss and her band, Union Station (whose ranks include Tyminski), Patty Loveless, Ricky Skaggs and the Del McCoury Band. The fast-paced revue clocks in at three hours, with one intermission. There is a lot of interaction among the musicians, onstage and off.
As Tyminski awaits his next cue, he jams behind the scenes with mandolin player Ronnie McCoury, Del's son and a member of his father's group.
"It seems every so often, people need to get back in touch with what inspired them in the first place, the roots of the music," Tyminski says.
"It's wonderful that radio doesn't have to dictate what's popular," he adds.
The success of "O Brother" is even more remarkable in light of the fact that the music received little airplay on commercial radio. The film itself and a video for "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow" in steady rotation on MTV's country cousin, CMT, provided valuable exposure, but sales of the soundtrack appear to have been driven primarily by word-of-mouth recommendations.
"People told other people about it," Neuwirth says.
"I've always played this music - old-time music, I call it," says Stanley, a Virginia native who teamed up with his older brother Carter in the '40s to form the Stanley Brothers, a seminal roots-music act. After Carter died in 1966, Stanley carried on with the Clinch Mountain Boys.
"The old-time mountain music . . . was born and bred in me, I guess," Stanley says. "I don't try to be extra special with it. I sing it just like I feel it. It just comes natural to me."
When he takes the stage and belts out an a cappella rendition of "O Death," the audience goes nuts. It's as if Mick Jagger just launched into "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction."
Talk about a tough act to follow. Then again, Stanley is tough, period. He recently removed an ingrown toenail - with a buck knife.
It took two hours to stop the bleeding, according to Neuwirth.
"It's great to see all you folks out there digging this old music. . . . It's music for all ages," Skaggs tells concertgoers.
They're a demographic go-figure. We're talking dudes with tie-dyed T-shirts, gals in cowboy boots and shirtless guys with beer bellies and tattoos. There are yuppies and rednecks, baby boomers and members of Generations X, Y and Z.
At Stanley's request, they all join hands and raise their voices together for the final encore, "Amazing Grace."
An even more surreal scene unfolds when rap-rocker Kid Rock crashes the post-concert meet-and-greet. He spends a good half-hour exchanging pleasantries with Skaggs and McCoury. They do their best not to wince when Rock breaks into an impromptu rendition of "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow," but Skaggs and McCoury can't help laughing.
Holding court in her dressing room after the show, Harris credits "O Brother" for fresh interest in her bluegrass-flavored 1980 album "Roses in the Snow," which will be reissued July 16 by Rhino Records.
"It was done 22 years ago, but it could've been done today," she says. "The thing about bluegrass is, you can't modernize it because it just exists in its pure form."
Later this year, Tyminski plans to record a solo project and another Alison Krauss and Union Station album. King is putting the finishing touches on an album, too - "Dirty South Hip- Hop Blues," due in October.
As for Stanley, he has a new self-titled album out on DMZ Records, a new label launched by "O Brother" producer T-Bone Burnett and the Coen brothers.
Over the course of a career spanning six decades, Stanley has recorded 170 albums. Thanks to "O Brother," he can't help feeling his time is now.
"The soundtrack, the O Brother' CD, has done more for this old-time music than anything," Stanley says. "It put it where people can hear it. . . . What I'm hoping is this old-time way of playing music is going to stay around a while."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jsoeder@plaind.com, 216-999-4562
© 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
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