O Brother, Where Art Thou? Various Artists Mercury, 2000 Buy it online Tracks 1: Po Lazarus / James Carter & The Prisoners 2: Big Rock Candy Mountain / Harry McClintock 3: You Are My Sunshine / Norman Blake 4: Down to the River to Pray / Alison Krauss 5: I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow / The Soggy Bottom Boys 6: Hard Time Killing Floor Blues / Chris Thomas King 7: I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow / Norman Blake 8: Keep on the Sunny Side / The Whites 9: I'll Fly Away / Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch 10: Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby / Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch 11: In the Highways / Sarah, Hannah and Leah Peasall 12: I Am Weary (Let Me Rest) / The Cox Family 13: I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow / John Hartford 14: O Death / Ralph Stanley 15: In the Jailhouse Now / The Soggy Bottom Boys 16: I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow / The Soggy Bottom Boys 17: Indian War Whoop / John Hartford 18: Lonesome Valley / Fairfield Four 19: Angel Band / The Stanley Brothers Reviewed by Claude Lalumière	Joel and Ethan Coen's O Brother, Where Art Thou? stands not only as one of their finest films to date but also as one of the great soundtrack albums. The film loosely adapts Homer's The Odyssey to tell a mythic tale of the depression-era American South that succeeds brilliantly in evoking bittersweet nostalgia without falling prey to false romanticization. The accompanying album presents the music in the order it appears in the film. The music is so integral to the story that listening to this album pleasantly recreates the narrative flow of the tale for those who have seen the film, while remaining an exemplary collection of songs and performances for anyone who hasn't. Without question, in both film and soundtrack album, the musical highlight is "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow." The tune occurs four times, in four different arrangements; two sorrowful instrumentals (one on guitar; the other, on fiddle) and two energetic vocal renditions by The Soggy Bottom Boys. These vocal performances are two of the film's most memorable and exciting moments. On the soundtrack they are a constant delight and a pleasure to re-experience time and again. This excellent tune, however, is far from being the only highlight. Although the bulk of the soundtrack is made up of contemporary renditions of traditional tunes, the album opens with two powerful archival recordings: "Po Lazarus" is a 1959 recording of a chain gang of Black prisoners singing and chopping wood in unison, and Harry McClintock's "Big Rock Candy Mountain" (from 1928) is a wistful invocation of a hobo utopia where "the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks" and "they hung the jerk that invented work." Other superlative moments include, among many others, Chris Thomas King's rendition of the appropriately titled "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" and the all too short siren call of "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby," a sensual bed of vocal pleasures provided by Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch, which could have gone on forever and I would have gladly surrendered to its embrace (as do the film's heroes) -- it should be noted, however, that this White interpretation of the traditional Black tune privileges its harmonic beauty over the harsh reality its lyrics describes. Nevertheless, like so much on this album, it's a striking performance. Even tunes that have been previously musaked to death, such as "You Are My Sunshine" and "Keep on the Sunny Side," are given an unexpected rootsy reboot. The puritanical roots of the United States were showing strongly in the 1930s, as people were trying to find some comfort in the midst of the debilitating economic depression and so fundamentalist Christianity and its questionable promises play a strong role in this Southern epic. In the film, the Christian tunes and themes occur in a social context and are never jarring. Here, they take on both a documentary and an aesthetic aspect, as the performers preserve musical history while reveling in the beauty of the music itself. The only alarming note is the mercifully short "In the Highways," sung by the Peasall sisters, in which three little girls are all too happy to be serving their patriarchal "Lord." (The scene where this song occurs in the film displays appropriately sleazy irony; a context that could not be recreated on the soundtrack.) O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the soundtrack album, beautifully creates the illusion of a perfectly preserved time capsule. Slip the CD into your player and slip back to another time, a time of great hardship and intolerance from which, against all odds, emerged a wealth of hauntingly beautiful music. | July 2001 Claude Lalumière is a Blue Coupe magazine contributing editor, as well as a freelance writer, editor, translator and publishing consultant. He owned and ran danger!, Montreal's chart-topping mid-1990s alternative bookstore. His published criticism can be found on his Web site.	The puritanical roots of the United States were showing strongly in the 1930s, as people were trying to find some comfort in the midst of the debilitating economic depression and so fundamentalist Christianity and its questionable promises play a strong role in this Southern epic.