Down from the Mountain (The "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Concert)

Down from the Mountain (The "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Concert)

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DVD Reviews of Down from the Mountain (The "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Concert)

DVD Review: Glorious Heartland Sounds, But...
Summary: 4 Stars

It's also interesting to hear the great "high tenor" observe that this is music one is born into--the solitariness of life in the deep backwoods, that Stanley credits for his "lonesome" sound--rather than a thing easily acquired by outsiders. The movie then jumps to a variety of outsiders, who discovered "bluegrass" in collegetown record bins, and their less appealing ruminations on the music. Here we have Gillian Welch, for example, who has a lovely voice and writes pretty songs, revealing herself as precisely the kind of artist with whom Stanley, elsewhere (in a New Yorker profile, of all things), has said he'd rather not play. (And he does look distinctly uncomfortable in their midst.) The filmmakers capture Welch--inadvertently, I think--in what struck me an entirely too condescending a disposition. As a result, her time on screen seems much too long, particularly when there are Allison Krausses and Emmy Lou Harrises in the house.

Once the concert gets rolling, the performances all sparkle, with those by The Fairfield Four, Krauss and her Union Station band (with Dan Tyminski), and Stanley (again, his hair-raising "Oh, Death") sparkling and then some. The courageousness of concert host, fiddler, raconteur, and riverboat pilot extraordinaire John Hartford, who would soon die of cancer, is most moving, quite apart from the conviction and emotional power of his music. And the picture and sound quality of this particular DVD is superior. (Spot the celebrities in the audience and win a cigar...)

I docked this DVD a full star for its failure to include a single performance by the film's heralded "Soggy Bottom Boys," and in particular for excluding "A Man of Constant Sorrow" as performed by the film's band, with Tyminski in the lead. (The version over which the title credits roll, with Stanley singing his own song, is exquisite, but a Soggy Bottom reprise would have been the cherry on top.) A major letdown.

But I nevertheless recommend this DVD highly. There is sufficient variation between the playlist of this concert and the movie soundtrack to warrant the purchase of both. Both indeed comprise "greatest hits" lists for America's great and glorious "down-home old-time mountain music" (pace Dr. Stanley and his terminological exactitude).

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