Originally posted by joyfulgirl:
Hmmm...I don't think this is true at all. It may be true for what I call pop-country artists like Shania Twain, but look at Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen Jr., T-Bone Burnett, Nanci Griffith, Johnny Cash, Dwight Yoakam, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Iris Dement, Guy Clark, Duane Jarvis, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Joe Ely, Rodney Crowell, Julie Miller, Dave Alvin and of course Gillian Welch...I mean, songwriting is what these people *do*. It's a huge genre of progressive/alternative/rockabilly country music *known* for songwriting.
This forced sound you mention I think isn't forced at all to my ear. It's exactly how that particular genre of roots music has always been performed by unknown people and their neighbors sitting in their living rooms or front porches. As truecolorsfly said, it's a different language, and it's just not pleasing to everyone's ears, but I really think O Brother captured it authentically and that's why it has become such a 'cult' hit, if you will. It does indeed evoke a different time and place, and it's just not going to be a time and place that a lot of people are interested in.