Drive By Truckers
The Dirty South
New West NW6058
By Marianne Ebertowski
 We
vote for politicians that convince us that they're doing the
Lord's work, then they sell us out and send our jobs off, leaving
us destitute, and what are we to do? We vote for them again.
(Patterson Hood in an interview with Mojo when asked
about the "bad reputation" of the South)
It's probably hard to find a more "southern" band
than the Drive By Truckers these days. The three-roaring-guitars
line-up, the anthem-like songs, it's all there, but without the
gung-ho flag-waving patriotism, the glorification and mystification
of the past and the misogyny which is so often associated with
southern rock. These "southern men" (and a new woman,
Shonna Tucker, who has replaced bassist Earl Hicks) show once
again that "they do keep their head and don't forget what
their good book said" and they don't need a Canadian to
tell them so. The Dirty South is a soul-searching album,
a passionate, relentless musical exploration of the dark side
of Southern identity. It neither demonizes nor vilifies, it just
tries to see things from a different perspective, to set some
facts straight and take it from there
For their sixth album, produced by ex- Sugar guitarist David
Barbe, the Drive By Truckers returned to The Legendary Fame Recording
Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama where Patterson Hood's dad was
part of the famous Wrecking Crew. The economic wasteland of Muscle
Shoals is where four of the band members grew up, but songwriters
Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell show their love for their
battered homeland in a way, some "southern men" may
not appreciate and they know it:
Don't piss off the boys from Alabama
You know they won't let it slide
They might find your body in the Tennessee River
or they might not find it at all
("Boys from Alabama," Petterson Hood)
Well, let's hope there will be no Truckers floating in the
Tennessee River. After all, the times of the State Line Gang
and Sheriff Buford Pusser's radical methods of ridding the country
of crime and immorality by walking tall and carrying a big stick
seem to be over. Pusser who has a highway named after him, films
made about his life ("Walking Tall", recently turned
into a brand new action-thriller with African American actor
Chris Vaugh in the main role) and many websites dedicated to
his legend, is shown in a different light in Hood's "The
Buford Stick ("The Legend of Sheriff Buford Pusser"),
where in the point of view of its small-time shiner story teller
"he's just another crooked lawman up in Tennessee"
who deserved what was coming to him.
The songs of the album tell the stories from the perspective
of the little people who have no choices in their lives and are
exposed to poverty, violence and oppression of many kinds and,
sometimes, see no other way than taking to meanness, violence
and crime themselves. And veterans Moon and Cooley (with young
Mr. Isbell following in their footsteps) prove once again that
they belong to the greatest storytellers in southern music. The album kicks off with Mike Cooley's tale of a man who tries
to support his family with moonshining during the Depression
years and gets turned in by his beloved wife leaving his boy
pleading:
Daddy, tell me another story
Tell me about the lows and the highs
Tell me why the ones who have so much
make the ones who don't go mad
with the same skin stretched over their white bones
and the same jug in their hand.
("Where the Devil Don't Stay")
In "Tornadoes," (Patterson Hood) an almost Sprinsteenish
ballad with distorted, echoic guitars, two rivaling towns in
Alabama with the same name get struck by 1974's April Twister
("it sounded like a train") destroying them both and
the reconciled survivors open up their homes to each other.
Jason Isbell's first fine moment comes with "The Day
John Henry Died," his take on the life and death of the
legendary steel driving man. Pushed forward by the sheer punk
power of that sturdy three-tier wall of guitars, the song has
the same raw urgency and liberating freshness of The Clash's
best work.
"Puttin'People on the Moon" (Hood) is a bitter hard
rock attack on "Goddamned Reagan in the White House"
where an unemployed car worker resorts to drug dealing in order
to support his wife and young son:
If I died in Colbert Country. Would it make the evening
news?
They too busy blowin' rockets, Puttin' people on the moon.
In the end, it's his wife who does the dying as the lack of
health insurance prevents her from getting the treatment she
needs to save her life.
Not everything on the album sounds that grim. Cooley's story
of "Carl Perkins' Cadillac" is a humorous, tongue-in-cheek
tribute to Sun producer Sam Philips ("the only man Jerry
Lee still would call sir") with Tom-Petty-style jangling
guitars including a 12 String Electric Hagstrom played by Isbell.
"The Sands of Iwo Jima" is Hood's tribute to his
great -uncle, a quiet WWII veteran who "never saw John Wayne
on the sands of Iwo Jima." Cooley's banjo picking and David
Barbe's Fender Rhodes piano provide the song with an oriental
backdrop.
Isbell's "Danko/Manuel" tribute to the Band is a
bittersweet memory of that very wonderful northern band that
could play southern music as if they were born into it.
Fifteen years ago we owned that road
Now it's rolling over us instead.
Richard Manuel is dead.
Fading out with a feedback Isbell and the Drive By Truckers
leave the listener with some skeptical thoughts about the much
envied life on the road. Mike Cooley wrote the acoustic ballad "Cottonseed"
from the point of view of one of the State Line Gang members
who may regret all the bad he's done, but cynically concludes
that:
I ain't here to save some souls and even if I could
I could never save enough to put back half the ones I took
So f they rest in torment you can't say it's cause of me
They'd long been bought and paid for like that fools in Tennessee.
Jason Isbell's 'Never Gonna Change" is a harsh take on
southern attitude:
Let this be a lesson to you girl: Don't come around where
you know you don't belong
They're riding along on the avenue and probably coming after
you and they all look mean and strong
Mean and strong like liquor
Mean and strong like fear.
Strong like the people from South Alabama and mean like the people
from here.
Take it from meWe ain't never gonna change.
The album closes on a particularly dark note. If Patterson
Hood's suicidal "Lookout Mountain," has not worried
you enough already, Jason Isbell's tough and defiant "Goddamn
Lonely Love" certainly will:
So I'll take two of what you're having and I'll take all of
what you got
To kill this goddamn lonely, goddamn lonely love.
In the liner notes, Patterson Hood writes sarcastically:
Welcome to the Dirty South. It's a tough place to make
a living, but we ain't complainin', just doing what we got to
do. Trying to raise our kids and love our women. Do right by
the ones we love. But don't fuck with us or we'll cut off your
head and through your body over a spillway at the Wilson Dam.
We'll burn your house down. Hell, I always liked ya. I do not
want to get my hands dirty, but I got this buddyIn the end, I'll
continue loving my family. I'll try not to fuck up too bad. Maybe
I'll live to tell the tale."
With The Dirty South, the Drive By Truckers have created
a thoroughly enjoyable album that succeeds in demystifying their
home turf without denying their identity. I think I seriously
like these guys. Many home countries, states or towns are "dirty"
and it takes a lot of courage, honesty and humbleness to deal
with that, because - like it or not - it's part of yourself and
you can't run away from it..
www.newwestrecords.com
www.drivebytruckers.com
Contact Marianne Ebertowski at ebertowski-at-rockzilla.net
|
