Nashville, Tenn. – It wasn’t Mississippi, but the muddy banks of the Cumberland River rang with the sound of a roots music revival on Saturday as the Grand Ole Opry celebrated 25 years of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
Featuring artists from the original motion picture like Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski – plus Billy Strings, Emmylou Harris, Del McCoury, and many more across the roots and bluegrass spectrum – a sold-out crowd marked a watershed moment in American music, which, even after a quarter century, is still making waves. Tickets to the show were reportedly selling for nearly $500 on the secondary market.
As the live broadcast began with Krauss and the Fairfield Four, it was clear that this would be no typical Opry program. Rather, it was a night dedicated to one of the most transformative recording projects of the modern era — born from a film about escaped convicts on a twisted treasure hunt in the Depression-era South, starring George Clooney. The 2000 Coen Brothers film is widely credited with sparking a traditional-music resurgence, which helped lead to the development of “Americana” itself.
The O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack, originally released via Lost Highway Records, sparked “a renaissance of roots music, bringing bluegrass, gospel, blues, country and folk all back into the spotlight,” said Opry announcer Mike Terry, introducing the 5,226th Saturday night performance at the Grand Ole Opry. “And like the Opry has done now for over 100 years, tonight we’re going to be honoring the music, the legacy, and the timeless sounds of the American South.”
Produced by T Bone Burnett, the soundtrack to the Oscar-winning film sold 8 million copies and spent 683 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, reaching Number One for months at a time. It also won the 2002 Grammy for Album of the Year, and was ranked Number 13 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 101 Greatest Soundtracks of All Time.
Burnett, drawing from the earliest years of American music, sourced songs that would eventually coalesce into country, rhythm & blues, and rock & roll. From gospel hymns and African spirituals to operate songs, folk songs, and Appalachian soul, his vision for the soundtrack was gritty, tragic, and attractive, much like the people it championed.
Onstage at the Opry House, the artists gathered around a single microphone and didn’t simply re-create the soundtrack; they gave it new life, backed by a top-flight band including Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Mike Compton on mandolin, Jerry Douglas on dobro, and Dennis Crouch on bass.
Old Crow Medicine Show got the crowd going with “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” while Sarah Jarosz inspired the night’s first singalong with “You Are My Sunshine,” and the Whites’ rendition of “Keep On the Sunny Side” felt more like a plea than a reminder. The dozen members of the Fisk Jubilee Singers helped Krauss earn a standing ovation for “Down to the River to Pray,” while Harris and Molly Tuttle joined Krauss for an a cappella standout on “Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby.”
After intermission, Billy Strings ripped through “Wild Bill Jones,” then joined Dan Tyminski, who famously voiced Clooney’s character on the film’s musical highlight, “Man of Constant Sorrow.” Together, they delivered a spine-tingling harmony blend on “O Death,” originally sung in the film by the late Ralph Stanley, before Tyminski brought the audience to its feet with “Man of Constant Sorrow.”
“I was the biggest afterthought of any part of this movie,” Tyminski said during a fan Q&A after the show. “George Clooney can sing. But because he said, ‘I’ll act and you sing,’ I got to pay off my house and put my kids in college and raise a family.”
Living legend Del McCoury wowed the audience with his high-lonesome vocal, and a pair of actors from the film reprised their career-altering songs. Tim Blake Nelson, who played Delmar O’Donnell on screen, turned on the charm for a yodeling lead on “In the Jailhouse Now.” And Chris Thomas King stepped back into the role of bluesman Tommy Johnson for the slinky, raw “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues.”
“T Bone was connected to something very special because these songs have been around forever, and I have been singing some of these songs for a long time,” King said during the Q&A. “But you don’t expect them to become arena material and to compete with Britney Spears like we did with the Down From the Mountain Tour. I was in awe.”
There is debate over the soundtrack’s real impact, with arguments as to whether a roots revival was already underway. But there’s no denying what came after. A wave of traditionally influenced artists solidified into the genre known as “Americana.” New acts like Mumford & Sons scored chart-topping hits, while icons like John Prine and Guy Clark enjoyed renewed appreciation. Krauss teamed up with Robert Plant on the Grammy-winning Raising Sand, and Tyminski had an EDM smash with the late DJ Avicii.
“We had a diverse crowd of people that we just weren’t used to seeing, and everyone with the same question: ‘Where can we find more music like this?’” Tyminski explained. “This music owes a huge debt to O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
At show’s finish, Burnett finally appeared to a chorus of cheers, saying the film was about the history of American folk music. “I hear bad things about our country, but if you want to know what’s good about the United States, listen to our music, because the music in the United States is the best music in the world,” he said. “People have come from all over the world in different languages, different religions, different politics, different all of it. But the musicians have all listened to each other and we’ve made harmony.”
The Opry program ended in that very same harmony, with every performer singing the refrain to “I’ll Fly Away,” and the crowd clapping along. More information about the Opry’s 2026 season can be found on their website.
