Includes a 24-page booklet with liner notes by Robert K. Oermann.

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU- won the 2002 Grammy Awards for Album Of The Year and for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album For A Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media. "O Death" won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Male Country Vocal Performance. "I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow" won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals.

Those kings of cinematic quirkiness, the Coen brothers, fashioned their film O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU- as a contemporary adaption of Homer's Odyssey, centering around a group of American chain-gang prisoners. The film's earthy Southern setting makes it a natural for a bluegrass-oriented soundtrack, for which producer T-Bone Burnett picked the cream of the country crop.

"Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby," for example, is a summit meeting of some of the finest contemporary female country vocalists (Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris, and Alison Krauss). The old school isn't forgotten either, as evidenced by a chilling a cappella rendering of "O Death," courtesy of Ralph Stanley, and by the closing cut, where the Stanley Brothers issue an elegant plea to heaven with "Angel Band."

What the critics say...

Rolling Stone (1/03/02, p.119) - Ranked #9 in Rolling Stone's "Top 10 2001".
Rolling Stone (1/18/01, pp.56-7) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...A collection of folk, bluegrass, gospel and hobo country so true to the music's down-home, egalitarian roots that it's hard to distinguish the old tracks from the new and the folk heroes from screen actors..."
Entertainment Weekly (10/12/01, p.38) - Ranked #56 in EW's "100 Best Movie Soundtracks" - "...An unlikely hillbilly smash making 1930s-style string-band music the 1st trend of the 21st-century..."
Q (12/00, p.139) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Mostly traditional spirituals and bluegrass numbers....richly evocative of its time and place, and educational too..."
No Depression (1-2/01, p.90) - "...The rarest of contemporary soundtracks: good (old) music, coherently programmed, and masterfully perfromed....an exceptional album..."
Mojo (Publisher) (6/02, p.68) - Included in Mojo's "100 Coolest Movie Soundtracks".
Mojo (Publisher) (1/02, p.70) - Ranked #3 in Mojo's "Best [10] Box Sets & Compilations of 2001".