Down from the Mountain

It's the most uplifting movie of a numbing year -- a feel-good film full of songs about feeling god-awful.

For fans of this kind of roots music, it was an event you would have given anything to attend. Down From the Mountain lets you do that and gives you terrific seats in the bargain.

Musically it's often breathtaking.

Good music stands alone, and the documentary is jaunty fun.

If the heart of the film is Hartford, who late in his struggle with cancer conveys the luminous colors of a man at his twilight, its soul is Welch.

Before the music takes over, the film inserts a few bits of charm, such as Emmylou Harris excitedly following the latest Major League Baseball scores.

If bluegrass were as static and dull as this concert film indicates, Nashville would have hustled all the hillbillies back to the Smokies long ago.