Stars tell it on the `Mountain' By Larry Katz Friday, December 12, 2003
Can ``Cold Mountain'' do for Sacred Harp singing what ``O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' did for bluegrass? That's the question posed by Tuesday's release of the soundtrack to the forthcoming Civil War movie starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renee Zellweger. Just like ``O Brother,'' ``Cold Mountain'' is set in an earlier time in the rural American South and tells a saga that harks back to Homer's ``Odyssey.'' Also like ``O Brother,'' ``Cold Mountain'' arrives with a soundtrack produced by T-Bone Burnett and stocked with old-fashioned American roots music performed by a mix of stars and traditional performers. Alison Krauss is the only performer who's on both soundtracks, but this time she's singing a ballad written for the movie by Sting (``You Will Be My Ain True Love'') and another co-written by Elvis Costello and Burnett (``The Scarlet Tide''). Both are deliberately old-fashioned and sparsely rendered, designed to sound as if they could have been hits 150 years ago. But the musical star of ``Cold Mountain'' is Detroit garage rocker Jack White of the White Stripes, who also appears as a musician in the movie. White, who often has spoken of his affection for blues and other kinds of authentic music, gets to demonstrate it with five folklike solo performances. He opens the album with ``Wayfaring Stranger'' before moving to stark covers of ``Sittin' on Top of the World,'' ``Christmas Time Will Soon Be Over'' and ``Great High Mountain,'' a track arranged by Ralph Stanley, a bluegrass legend who achieved new renown thanks to ``O Brother.'' White's best song is an original, the slightly modern-sounding ``Never Far Away.'' It respects the movie's authenticity - or at least pseudo-authenticity - while adding a few more chord changes and a little richness to the prevailing austerity of the ``Cold Mountain'' soundtrack. It's not just unlikely that ``Cold Mountain'' will win a Grammy for Album of the Year like ``O Brother'' did. It's inconceivable. But a ``Cold Mountain'' concert tour wouldn't be out of the question. And stirring up new interest in Sacred Harp singing is a certainty. Two ``Cold Mountain'' tracks were recorded at an Alabama church by Sacred Harp singers, named after an 1844 songbook of shape note music, a system used to teach harmony singing to amateurs unable to read conventional musical notation. The stirring Sacred Harp song ``Idumea'' closes ``Cold Mountain'' with these haunting lyrics: ``And am I born to die, to lay this body down, And must my trembling spirit fly into a world unknown?'' ``Idumea'' is the sort of strangely riveting number that landed Ralph Stanley a Grammy for his ``O Brother'' performance of ``O Death'' and made the ``O Brother'' soundtrack an unexpected multimillion-selling hit. If local Sacred Harp singing clubs start sprouting next year - and if you join one yourself - don't be surprised.