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June 5, 2004
Dear Renee:
Always held me spellbound, too. I used to cry like a baby & the
hair stood up on the back of my neck when he sang that song-still
does. His age, the beautiful, now-so-wrinkled hands that pluck the banjo,
the fact that before any of us want to think of it we may ourselves face
Death.....all those we've lost to the Ever Powerful Death who cares not what we
want but takes whomever it wants whenever and however it wants----it all plays a
part, don't you think? Ralph has always been able to sing in that
way. All I can say is the casting director and/or T. Bone Burnett who
produced the soundtrack for "O'Brother" knew what he was doing. For the
few minutes that ghostly, haunting and very familiar voice sounded during
the movie "O'Brother", we were all transported to a the place where a black man
faced a grisly, unjust death just because his skin was black and everyone who
heard that music felt Mr. Johnson's terror, desperation, helplessness and sense
of horrible injustice. Anyone who can do that.....gets
respect.
Cordially,
Doris Stanley Bradley
(I finally got my auto-mail to stop signing my professional
signature)
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