Among the game-changing 15 Academy Award nominations announced Tuesday morning for Netflix _ whose "Roma" finally put the powerful streaming service in contention for best picture _ was an expected nod in the original song category for a plaintive roots-music number by a woman with plenty of experience in that field.
Nope, not Dolly Parton.
Although the veteran country star's "Girl in the Movies," from "Dumplin'," was widely tipped to be nominated, Oscar voters instead chose "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings," from Netflix's Coen brothers anthology, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs."
Sung in the movie by Tim Blake Nelson and Willie Watson, "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" _ about a gunslinger "halfway to heaven under horsepower of my own" _ was written by Gillian Welch and her creative partner, David Rawlings, who've performed and recorded together for years.
It may seem an unlikely choice for Oscar recognition, at least until you remember how wild folks in show business went for the Grammy-winning soundtrack to the Coens' "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" (which featured Welch and Rawlings).
But in snubbing Parton, who'd been putting in considerable work on the awards circuit, perhaps film academy members felt they'd already done enough for famous musicians by nominating Lady Gaga for "Shallow," her duet with Bradley Cooper from "A Star Is Born," and Kendrick Lamar for "All the Stars," his duet with SZA from "Black Panther."
The category's remaining two nominees _ "I'll Fight," from "RBG," and "The Place Where Lost Things Go," from "Mary Poppins Returns" _ edged out tunes written by the likes of Thom Yorke, Sade and Chaka Khan.
"Black Panther" is also represented in the original score category, where Ludwig Goransson's music from the superhero movie earned this Swedish multi-tasker his first Oscar nod after a string of Grammy nominations for his work with Donald Glover in Childish Gambino.
Also debuting as a nominee: Terence Blanchard, Spike Lee's longtime composer, who at last got the academy's attention with his guitar-heavy score for "BlacKkKlansman."
The other composers up for original score are Nicholas Britell, for "If Beale Street Could Talk"; Marc Shaiman, for "Mary Poppins Returns"; and last year's winner, Alexandre Desplat, for "Isle of Dogs," which follows his work on "The Shape of Water."
