Gillian Welch Sings Hard Country Story aired: Friday, August 29, 2003
Singer-songwriter Gillian Welch is perhaps best known for her work on the soundtrack of the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou."
Around Nashville, she's recognized as a purveyor of the "hard country" sound, with her music echoing the Carter family, and even bluegrass giant Ralph Stanley.
But Welch isn't nostalgic. She says the best country songs can have as much grit as punk rock. In her song "Caleb Meyer," for instance, Welch sings of a woman who has cut a rapist's throat with a whiskey bottle and now lives in fear of his ghost.
She sings from the perspective of male and female characters alike, songs of hardship and pain with an honesty that she says modern country music has lost.
