Man of Constant Sorrow is the best known vocal number in bluegrass. The Stanley Brothers gave it its bluegrass shape in 1951. Fifty years on, Dan Tyminski sang it as the voice of George Clooney’s character in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and a hundred year old lament became a CMA winning single. Pickers care because it is a three chord song that can still stop a room.
Where it came from
The paper trail starts with Dick Burnett, a fiddler from Monticello, Kentucky. He lost his sight in a 1907 robbery and turned to music for a living. Around 1913 he printed the lyric as “Farewell Song” in a songbook titled Songs Sung by R. D. Burnett, The Blind Man, Monticello, Kentucky. One verse in his text mentions his blindness. Years on, the historian Charles Wolfe asked him if he wrote it. Burnett answered, “No, I think I got the ballad from somebody. I dunno. It may be my song.” No one has traced it past him, though the tune may reach back into older hymn singing.
Emry Arthur, a singer from Wayne County, Kentucky, knew Burnett. In 1928 he cut the first released recording, “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow,” for Vocalion. His record fixed the title and most of the words singers use today.
The Stanley Brothers learned the song from their father, Lee Stanley, and added words of their own. They recorded it on November 3, 1950, at Castle Studio in Nashville, with Ralph Stanley singing lead. Columbia released it in May 1951 with “The Lonesome River” on the flip side. They cut it again for King Records on September 15, 1959, in a new arrangement with answering refrain lines. The folk revival took it from there. Bob Dylan recorded it in November 1961 for his 1962 debut album. Judy Collins recast it as “A Maid of Constant Sorrow” on her 1961 debut.
In 2000, producer T Bone Burnett built the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack around the song. Dan Tyminski sang lead for the fictional Soggy Bottom Boys, with Harley Allen and Pat Enright on harmony. It won Single of the Year at the 2001 CMA Awards, and the soundtrack won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2002. The Stanley Brothers’ 1951 recording entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2020.
How it works
This is a three chord song: the 1, the 4, and the 5. In F, that is F, Bb, and C. The verses run long, and the melody hangs over the chord changes, so follow the singer, not a count.
The hook is the answering echo. The lead sings a line, then the harmony voices answer with lines like “in constant sorrow all through his days.” The 1951 Stanley recording has no echo. Ralph sang it as a bare solo vocal. The echo arrived with the 1959 King remake, and the O Brother arrangement kept it.
Keys move with the singer. Tyminski recorded the O Brother version in F, and guitarists reach it with a capo at the third fret out of D shapes. Transcriptions place the 1951 Stanley recording near A. Ralph Stanley sang it in several keys across his career. At a jam, the singer calls the key, and G, A, Bb, D, and F all get used. Pick the key that puts the high notes at the top of your range, because the song wants a high, lonesome lead. Our guide to calling a song at a jam covers how to make that call. One note on rights: the old song is public domain, but the O Brother arrangement is under copyright, so learn it by ear and make it your own. More standards live in the songbook.
Recordings worth hearing
Start with the Stanley Brothers’ 1951 Columbia single. It is the recording that made this a bluegrass song, and Ralph’s bare lead vocal still stops a room. Their 1959 King remake adds the answering refrain that every band copies. Emry Arthur’s 1928 Vocalion disc is the first record of the song and the source of the standard text. Bob Dylan’s 1962 version carried it into the folk revival, and Judy Collins’s 1961 “A Maid of Constant Sorrow” gave it a second life for women singers. The Soggy Bottom Boys’ 2000 cut with Dan Tyminski is the hit, tight and driving in F. Alison Krauss and Union Station’s 2002 live album catches Tyminski singing it on stage with a full band. Ralph Stanley kept it in his shows with the Clinch Mountain Boys until the end, and any late live version shows how far one man can carry one song.
Sources
Facts on this page come from the Traditional Tune Archive entry, the Mudcat Cafe thread on the song’s authorship, the Clinch Mountain Echo discography pages for Columbia 20816 and King 45-5269, the Bluegrass Today report on the 2020 Grammy Hall of Fame induction, the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame biography of Carter Stanley, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History record of Emry Arthur’s Vocalion disc, and the Pickers Guide transcription of the 1951 recording.