Peasall Sisters to make Opry debut tonight

Midstate trio acclaimed for work on '0 Brother' soundtrack

by Ray Waddle
Religion Editor
for the Tennessean (in Nashville, TN)

February 3, 2001


It's been a big week for the singing Peasall sisters, three young Baptist girls who've made a dent in the Hollywood scene just by being themselves.

Their gospel voices can be heard in the current movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? and on the acclaimed CD soundtrack, which features roots music by various Nashville luminaries. The Peasalls' photo is in this week's People magazine, where the CD is hailed as album of the week.

Tonight, the Peasall Sisters play the Grand Ole Opry for the first time.

Sarah Peasall, 13, the oldest in the trio, sounds pretty calm about it all. "It's totally a God thing," she said this week. "There's no way we could have these opportunities unless God made it possible."

Until recently, the Peasall Sisters-- Sarah, 13, Hannah, 10, Leah, 7 --were known mostly at their church, First Baptist Church in White House, where these home-schooled siblings occasionally sing.

They've also done session work here for kids' records and for Christian music products, and they've performed at Baptist-oriented Woman's Missionary Union gatherings.

Suddenly, their stage has expanded. In O Brother, the latest film from the award-winning Coen brothers, the sisters supply the dubbed-over voices on a couple of gospel tunes, In the Highways and Angel Band, when the young daughters of the George Clooney character burst into song.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a comedy about three chain-gang escapees in the Old South. Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen loosely based their story on Homer's Odyssey to give structure to the high jinks and predicaments of the main characters. It's also a celebration of old-time American folk and gospel music, a sound dear to the Coens, a sound they researched in Nashville.

As with other Coen brothers films, the action, set in Mississippi in 1937, has strokes of beauty, humor, oversize characters and profanity.

So the young Peasall Sisters won't be seeing this movie in the theaters, their parents said.

"I loved the movie except for that one part of it, the profanity," said Michael Peasall, father of the Peasall Sisters and music minister at First Baptist Church in White House. The church's choir also can be heard on the soundtrack, backing up Alison Krauss on Down to the River to Pray.

Not seeing their own sonic splash on the big screen apparently is OK with the daughters. They might have a better chance of seeing the video version when it comes out, their father suggested, because it can be edited, more or less, for family viewing.

More important, said Sarah Peasall, she and her sisters see their involvement as a way of testifying for the Christian faith. "I definitely think it's a witnessing tool," she said. "Hearing lyrics like, 'In the highways, in the hedges, I'll be somewhere working for my Lord...' might sneak up on some people."

The Peasalls originally tried out for acting parts in the movie during a local audition. They didn't get the roles, but the talent team heard them sing and found a role for their voices instead.

"They sang and everybody loved it," said Denise Stiff, executive producer of the soundtrack. "It's a treasure to have found them. They were so good, but also they were real, not stagy --just completely girls," said Stiff, who is the manager of singers Alison Kraus and Gillian Welch, both of whom are on the CD.

Having tasted some newfound celebrity, the Peasalls say they have no big next step in mind-- not yet, anyway.

"We've talked about it, but it's really whether God wants us to do anything or not," Sarah Peasall said. "Whatever God wants is what we want."
whlib@viafamily.com