Jon Bream
Star Tribune
Published Feb 11, 2002
A pair of filmmaking brothers from St. Louis Park and a Hollywood rock producer named T-Bone have given old-time music its biggest boost since the Grand Ole Opry was first broadcast live nationally in the 1920s.
The Coen Brothers' popular movie, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," starring George Clooney, and the T-Bone Burnett-produced, 4 million-selling movie-soundtrack album, featuring a cavalcade of stellar but not widely known singers, have made it hip to like this square music.
Now, the Coens and Burnett have put together a 17-city, multi-act bluegrass and old-time music caravan, Down from the Mountain Tour, which has been an instant sellout, even with top tickets going for $65.
When the program came to the soldout Historic State Theater on Saturday night on the Coens' home turf, the performers were preaching to the choir, as the great interpretive singer Emmylou Harris put it. She credited Garrison Keillor, "a national treasure," and his St. Paul-based, old-styled radio show "A Prairie Home Companion," not Clooney, for keeping this kind of music alive.
Like "Prairie Home" without the monologue and commercials and the Opry without a stage set, Down from the Mountain presented one or two numbers from a singer, maybe a collaboration later with some other players or singers, and then all 35 or so performers closing the show with an audience singalong of "Amazing Grace." Not one of the 11 acts was overwhelming, but the whole Mountain sampler was. It consisted of simple songs with back-porch harmonies and fancy picking on acoustic instruments for nearly three hours. You couldn't imagine a better time in Nashville, the Smoky Mountains or hillbilly heaven -- unless maybe Minnie Pearl could crack a few jokes.
Saturday's program featured all but two songs heard on "O Brother" but not necessarily performed by the same singers. It didn't matter. The Peasall Sisters, a trio, all under age 15, who are on the soundtrack, took on "I'll Fly Away" with casual confidence and cute aplomb. Even though their tapping feet weren't in harmony, their voices were. Rhonda Vincent & the Rage tore it up on "Down to the River to Pray," which was done on the soundtrack by Alison Krauss, who took the weekend off from the tour (but will perform her own concert here on March 26).
Chris Thomas King, who plays a sell-his-soul-to-the-devil bluesman in "O Brother," brought some old-fashioned acoustic Delta blues, a respite from all the mountain music. Current bluegrass champion Del McCoury and country star Patty Loveless, neither of whom had anything to do with "O Brother," had everything to do with making Down for the Mountain a beginning-to-end delight.
The Del McCoury Band had fans hooting and hollering to its breakneck picking. Loveless harmonized with Harris and Vincent on the soundtrack's "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby" and sparkled on two authentic-sounding tunes from her excellent 2001 CD, "Mountain Soul." Another high point was the swingin' instrumental "Honky Tonk Swang," featuring the Nashville Bluegrass Band, whose members backed up several singers throughout the night.
Late in the program, bluegrass patriarch Ralph Stanley, who will turn 75 in two weeks, finally took the stage to offer three soundtrack songs about torment and salvation -- "O Death," "Angel Band" and the "O Brother" signature, "I'm a Man of Constant Sorrow." His twangy voice, like mountain music itself, is still strong, forceful and true.
Of course, this tour is not the end of this stuff. The Coen Brothers and Burnett plan to take Down from the Mountain to new heights: a summer tour with a six-hour show featuring full sets by some artists and more performers, including Taj Mahal and Ricky Skaggs.
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