‘O Brother’ Soundtrack Spurs Creation of a Label

The success surrounding the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack just won’t quit.

The album, built on rural American music from the first half of the 20th century and produced by T Bone Burnett for Joel and Ethan Coen’s movie, is approaching 2.5 million in U.S. sales since its release last December, and between 40,000 and 50,000 copies still sell each week.

It spun off a series of concerts, a documentary film and a live album featuring contributors Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Alison Krauss and, most notably, bluegrass pioneer Ralph Stanley, launching the legend into an unexpected spotlight.

Now it’s giving birth to a new record label.

Burnett is teaming with the Coen brothers to create DMZ Records, planned as home to various projects, not necessarily related to films. Burnett is in talks with several major labels and expects to finalize a distribution deal soon.

Among the albums in the works for DMZ are a new Stanley showcase that Burnett will produce, and the soundtrack for the Louisiana-set movie “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood,” also being overseen by Burnett.

The movie, starring Ashley Judd and scheduled for release next summer, is based on the novel by Rebecca Wells and marks the directing debut of “Thelma & Louise” screenwriter Callie Khouri. Burnett is drawing on such Louisiana figures as the Savoy Family Cajun Band to supply the evocative music.

“The success of ‘O Brother’ has been all about Ralph Stanley for me,” Burnett says. “It does an old hillbilly’s heart good--and I mean mine.”

The new label, though, won’t be aligned with Universal subsidiary Lost Highway, which also got a boost from the “O Brother” phenomenon.

Lost Highway was founded by Luke Lewis, president of Mercury Records Nashville, after the movie soundtrack, released by Mercury, demonstrated a market for country-related music outside the pop-leaning styles that have dominated country radio. So far, Lost Highway has released the live “Down From the Mountain” album of the “O Brother” concert in July.

The label has also put out acclaimed albums by Lucinda Williams and Ryan Adams, plus a tribute to Hank Williams featuring Bob Dylan, Beck, Emmylou Harris and Johnny Cash, among others. Shelby Lynne’s “Love Shelby” is due Nov. 13.

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RING-A-DING: Anyone expecting the remake of 1960 heist caper “Ocean’s Eleven” to be a big Rat Pack festival may be disappointed. Director Steven Soderbergh wanted to distance the new version, with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts and Andy Garcia, from the original vehicle for Frank Sinatra and cronies Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Angie Dickinson and Joey Bishop.

The soundtrack and accompanying album will center on a contemporary score by Irish DJ and electronica artist David Holmes, who also did the enticing music for Soderbergh’s 1998 “Out of Sight.” Holmes’ score will be supplemented with an assortment of selections evoking the Las Vegas aesthetic, including Elvis Presley’s late-’60s obscurity “A Little Less Conversation,” and old tracks by Perry Como, the Arthur Lyman Combo and Quincy Jones. The album is due Dec. 4, with the movie opening Dec. 7.

But Capitol Records, the Rat Pack’s original musical nest, is happy to fill any new demand and is opening the vaults for “The Rat Pack Live at the Sands,” recorded in 1963 when the well-lubricated pals took over the Copa Room stage. The set, much of which has never been officially released (although it has been bootlegged) featured Sinatra, Martin and Davis in solo and combination numbers, interspersed with banter, jokes and impressions.

Capitol will simultaneously release “Eee-O Eleven: The Best of the Rat Pack,” compiling 18 of the three singers’ hits from the “Ocean’s Eleven” era, including the title song, which was performed by Davis in the movie.

“There’s a continuing interest in that era and the music of that era, whether it be from the counterculture side or from what we could call cocktail culture,” Capitol President Andy Slater says. “You’ve heard it in recent years in the ‘Swingers’ soundtrack, and we had the idea while looking for ways to create art out of this rich catalog.”

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THE ORANGE CURTAIN: Who better to provide the planned first single for a soundtrack to a movie titled “Orange County” than the Orange County-based Offspring?

The group is at work now with record producer Brendan O’Brien on a new song commissioned for the comedy, being made by MTV Films and starring Colin Hanks (Tom’s son) as a student who endures hectic misadventures after a mishap with his college application.

The film is scheduled for release in January, but the album (with other artists currently being selected) is due in December.

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SMALL FACES: Los Angeles punkers NOFX and Bay Area-originated Rancid are teaming up for a tribute--to each other. Each band will record six of the other’s songs for a joint CD due in March as the third volume in indie label BYO’s “Split Series.” The two bands intend to keep the song selections secret until closer to release date....

The Chemical Brothers, who released the single “It Began in Afrika” last month, are finishing a new album, due Jan. 29. Beth Orton and Richard Ashcroft have each recorded guest vocals for the as-yet-untitled set....

A selection from a “lost” 1970 collaboration between late bluesman Willie Dixon and Los Angeles fixture Chuck E. Weiss will be featured on Weiss’ “Old Souls and Wolf Tickets” album, due Jan. 22. Dixon and the Chicago All-Stars got together with Weiss at a studio in the latter’s then-home in Boulder, Colo., and recorded 20 songs in a casual session, but the master tapes went missing. Earlier this year, Weiss found a tape reel with copies of some of the material. The song picked for the new release is the Don Raye blues standard “Down the Road a Piece.” The rest of the album is made up of all new recordings, including a duet with Eleni Mandel.