One of the posts on
No Depression today reflects on the effects of the soundtrack of
O'Brother Where Art Thou? and the state of Americana music. Click
HERE if you're interested in reading it.
I found the post interesting because the soundtrack does seem to represent a tipping point of sorts for old timey and bluegrass influenced artists and how those genres started to attract more fans in this decade. I don't agree with what he's saying about the influence on 9/11. Sure, it's part of the milieu. How couldn't it be? But I don't see it as a significant factor why people started listening to Americana music.
Instead, I'll use Occam's razor and propose that people were exposed to really good music that they didn't know much about or didn't have much of, and they got hooked like I did since I got back into Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash, various blues musicians, and alt-country folks along with discovering artists like the Hackensaw Boys, Trampled by Turtles, Emma Hill, Old Crow Medicine Show, the Gourds, Neko Case, Railroad Earth, et al.
