Recommend Music like the 'O Brother' or 'Lawless' soundtracks

Vintage or contemporary - it doesn't bother me.

 

Dan Tyminski to whose singing voice actor George Clooney moves his lips, released a bluegrass solo album in the same year that "O Brother" came out. It's called "Carry Me Cross the Mountain". That's your Soggy Bottom Boys full-length album right there.

 

Thanks. It's playing on Spotify now. Too bad it has a terrible album cover. More please!

 

Check out William Elliott Whitmore.

 

The closest thing I could think of...

 

A '90s Americana act that featured a spooky roots vibe was 16 Horsepower:

 

Fast forward to 30 seconds...

 

Well, the O Brother soundtrack is all built around the great old time music recorded during the rural recording boom of the late '20s and early '30s. So, the Bristol Sessions -- which is really the birth of country music -- offers a good overview with the first recordings of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. The Monroe Brothers sides for RCA in the '30s. The Stanley Brothers (I think Ralph Stanley did a lot of the singing on the O Brother soundtrack), Charlie Poole (the great box set You Ain't Talking to Me is brilliant).

Also I think Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings did a lot of singing for that soundtrack. Their records -- under either one's leadership -- are great.

 

You need the live disc. There are a few songs that are on the soundtrack, but several more that aren't. Great version of "John Law Burned Down the Liquor Store" by Chris Thomas King and Colin Linden...

 

More? OK.

You probably know that T Bone Burnett produced the "O Brother" soundtrack. His love of bluegrass goes back for quite some time: Half of his 1992 album "Criminal Under My Own Hat" is rock, the other half is bluegrass with bassists Roy Huskey, Jr. and Edgar Meyer, dobro virtuoso Jerry Douglas and violinist (and now classical composer) Mark O'Connor. But his first foray came with his eponymous album from 1986. Also, there was some sort of a bluegrass revival taking place in the late 80s, which brought forth the instrumental supergroup effort called Strength in Numbers and their lone album "Telluride Sessions". That band is the creme of the crop of bluegrass musicians of their time and even today: Bela Fleck (of later Flecktones fame) on banjo, Edgar Meyer on bass, Jerry Douglas (now of Union Station fame) on dobro, Sam Bush (formerly of New Grass Revival) on mandolin and the above mentioned Mark O'Connor on violin. It does not sound as old-timey as "O Brother" does, though, so if you are looking for that, you probably won't find it on that album. But if you like that one, there is more to discover for you, especially since many of its protagonists have reached out into creating bluegrass-classical-crossover records.

 

Those people in turn teamed up with others (and themselves - but never those 5 again) to produce several other albums I like.

Appalachia Waltz - Meyer, O'Connor and Yo-Yo Ma
Appalachian Journey - Meyer, O'Connor and Yo-Yo Ma
Uncommon Ritual - Meyer, Fleck and Mike Marshall
Skip, Hop & Wobble - Meyer, Douglas & Russ Barenberg

Sony released a compilation from several of these albums and others (all contemporary) called Heartland.

 

Might want to check out the Cold Mountain soundtrack. It's available on Spotify.

 

One more. Frank Newsome reminds me of Ralph Stanley

 

And let's not forget "Short Trip Home" by Joshua Bell & Edgar Meyer with Sam Bush and Mike Marshall. That album has got the bonus of featuring a real ancient Italian Stradivari violin played by Bell.

The before mentioned "Skip Hop And Wobble" and "Uncommon Ritual" are very much to my liking. However, for some strange reason, I couldn't get into the "Appalachian" albums mentioned above. I don't know why.

Yet, Russ Barenberg's solo album "When At Last" is pretty brilliant, as is "Lookout For Hope" by Jerry Douglas. These are more modern sounding, though.

I think Norman Blake, the guitarist on the "O Brother" soundtrack, has got a solo album out , too, but I haven't heard it yet.
And Dr. Ralph Stanley's eponymous solo effort on DMC/Columbia is a direct spinoff of the "O Brother" soundtrack, also produced by T Bone Burnett. That one is probably the darkest record of all those mentioned.

 

The Coal Porters
(ex-Long Ryder Sid Griffin's bluegrass band)

 

The Monroe Brothers, 1936, -- Bill Monroe before bluegrass and the Blue Grass Boys with his brother Charlie. Their recordings from the mid-30s to me are not only one of the great bodies of work in American music history but the essential model for a lot of the O Brother Where Art Thou? music.

 

Oh, Brother is the only soundtrack I bothered to record from DVD to cassette. I used to play in my previous car, its a fun listen on longer journeys.