Roots music found commercial success in 2000 with the release of the movie O Brother Where Art Thou, a finely crafted but outrageous tale of Depression-era America with fantastical imagery of hair wax, baptisms, and chain gangs woven into a tapestry built from Homer’s Odyssey. The music, assembled by T-Bone Burnett, was a major component of the film and recorded before the film even began with Burnett working with the Coen brothers while the script was in its working phases. It would become an effort that elevated a genre at the turn of the century called Americana. This week’s show will share some of the period-specific music that helped to propel the notion that blues, jazz, bluegrass, country, and gospel could be used to put that time and a ghostly familiar culture into focus. We’ll use O Brother’s musical sensibilities to take us somewhere quite familiar (and at the same time quite terrifying) as we pay homage with Americana roots, featuring sounds from The Carters, Jesse Fuller, Dan Tyminski, Jimmie Rodgers, W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel & His Hillbilly Boys, among others.
| No. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Artist | Title | Album | Buy |
| 2 | Estil C. Ball | Lonesome Valley | Sounds of the South [Disc 3] – Negro Church Music & White Spirituals |  |
| 3 | The Carter Family With Special Guest Johnny Cash | Lonesome Valley | Keep On The Sunny Side | |
| 4 | Harry McClintock | Big Rock Candy Mountain | O Brother, Where Art Thou? | |
| 5 | Jimmie Davis With Charles Mitchell's Orchestra | You Are My Sunshine | Decca Country Classics 1934-1973 [Disc 1] | |
| 6 | Alison Krauss | Down To The River To Pray | A Hundred Miles Or More: A Collection | |
| 7 | Peasall Sisters | Fair and Tender Ladies | Home to You | |
| 8 | Roberta Martin Singers | The Old Ship of Zion | Halleluja Gospel & Prayers | |
| 9 | The Stanley Brothers | A Life Of Sorrow | Stanley Brothers & Clinch Mountain Boys | |
| 10 | Dan Tyminski/Soggy Bottom Boys | Man of Constant Sorrow | O Brother, Where Art Thou? | |
| 11 | W. Lee & His Hillbilly Boys | Please Pass The Biscuits Pappy | Western Swing Chronicles Vol. 4 1933-1938 | |
| 12 | Country Gentlemen | I Am Weary (Let Me Rest) | 1963 (Warped 6305) | |
| 13 | The Stanley Brothers & The Clinch Mountain Boys | Clinch Mountain Backstep | Constant Sorrow: Bluegrass From Root To Flower [Disc 3] | |
| 14 | The Whites | Keep on the Sunny Side | O Brother, Where Art Thou? | |
| 15 | Chuck Wagon Gang | I'll Fly Away | 1941-1948 (Warped 4128) | |
| 16 | Hannah Peasall/Leah Peasall/Sarah Peasall/The Peasall Sisters | In the Highways | O Brother, Where Art Thou? | |
| 17 | Ralph Stanley | Oh, Death (Featuring Gillian Welch) | Clinch Mountain Sweethearts | |
| 18 | Jesse Fuller | Amazing Grace | 15 Down Home Gospel Classics | |
| 19 | The Statler Brothers | Statler Brothers – Amazing Grace | Bless This House [Disc 3] | |
| 20 | The Stanley Brothers | Angel Band | O Brother, Where Art Thou? | |
| 21 | Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys | Cryin' Holy Unto My Lord | Constant Sorrow: Bluegrass From Root To Flower [Disc 2] | |
| 22 | Doc Watson | In the Jailhouse Now | Memories | |
| 23 | Robert Johnson | They're Red Hot | ABC Of The Blues Vol 18 | |
| 24 | Lefty Frizzell | My Rough And Rowdy Ways | Songs Of Jimmie Rodgers | |
| 25 | Jimmie Rodgers | Frankie And Johnnie | Recordings 1927 – 1933 [Disc 2] | |
| 26 | Peerless Four | Trouble in My Way | Southern Journey Vol 8 (Velvet Voices: Eastern Shores Choirs, Quartets, and Colonial Era Music) | |
| 27 | Chuck Wagon Gang/Jack Greene | Family Bible | 70th Anniversary | |
| 28 | J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers | Goin' Down To The River Of Jordan | Take Me To The Water | |
| 29 | The Carter Family | River Of Jordan | Can The Circle Be Unbroken | |
| 30 | W. Lee O'Daniel | O'Daniel radio show sign off | Western Swing Chronicles Vol. 4 1933-1938 | |
| 31 | The Carter Family | Can The Circle Be Unbroken | Can The Circle Be Unbroken | |
| 32 | John Hartford | Indian War Whoop [Instrumental] | O Brother, Where Art Thou? | |