Drive-By Truckers
NewMusicforOldFolks says …
The Drive-By Truckers have been making great music for almost 20 years. Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley have been the constants in the band since 1998. Each rights songs and sings in a distict voice reflecting Southern culture and its struggles. While the lyrics are thoughtful, the rock ’n roll is hard and fast and not for the timid. Start with the Southern Rock Opera, but you can't really go wrong with anything in the catalog.
Artist's info
Website: drivebytruckers.com
Record company: ATO Records
Genre: Blues, R&B
See also: Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley
If you like this, look into: Jason Isbell, Royal Southern Brotherhood, Cracker
Bio (From AllMusic.com)
Boasting a mix of Southern pride, erudite lyrics, and a muscled three-guitar attack, Drive-By Truckers became one of the most well-respected alternative country-rock acts of the 2000s. Led by frontman Patterson Hood and featuring a rotating cast of Georgia and Alabama natives, the band celebrated the South while refusing to paint over its spotty past. History, folklore, politics, and character studies all shared equal space in the Truckers catalog, which offered up its first blast of gutsy, twangy rock with 1998's Gangstabilly. However, it was the band's ambitious double-disc concept album, The Southern Rock Opera, that became its unlikely magnum opus. A two-act affair, the album explored Hood's fascination with '70s Southern rock (specifically Lynyrd Skynyrd) while tackling the cultural contradictions of the region, and it helped lay the groundwork for much of the band's later work. (More)
Spotify sampler
Recordings
Most Recent
ENGLISH OCEANS (2014): The 12th release by Athens, Georgia's Drive-By Truckers, is an elegantly balanced and deeply engaged new effort that finds the group refreshed and firing on all cylinders.All but one of the collection's 13 new songs, written by singer-guitarists and co-founding members Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, were recorded during 13 days of sessions in August 2013 with longtime producer David Barbe. Six of the songs were the result of a burst of writing activity by Cooley."I had time to write," Cooley says. "After we came off the road last time, we decided we were going to let it rest for a while. So I had time to really focus. I kind of had to re-learn how to write, because I didn't write as many songs as I'd wanted on the last couple of records. I was happy with these songs, and thrilled to go in and record so many that I felt real strongly about."
Others
Gangstabilly (1998, re-released in 2005)
Pizza Deliverance (1999, re-released in 2005)
Alabama Ass Whuppin' (2000, re-released in 2013)
Southern Rock Opera (2001, re-released in 2002)
Decoration Day (2003)
The Dirty South (2004)
A Blessing and a Curse (2006)
Brighter Than Creation's Dark (2008)
Live From Austin, TX (2009)
The Fine Print: A Collection of Oddities and Rarities (2009)
The Big To-Do (2010)
Go-Go Boots (2011)
Live At Third Man (2011) (Limited edition vinyl-only release)
Ugly Buildings, Whores, and Politicians: Greatest Hits 1998-2009 (2011)
