Drive-By Truckers are an American institution “Southern Rock Opera” is the third studio album by the American rock band Drive-By Truckers, released in 2001. Originally released as a double album covering an ambitious range of subject matter from the politics of race to 1970s stadium rock, “Southern Rock Opera” either imagines, or filters, every topic through the context of legendary Southern band Lynyrd Skynyrd.
The band documented in This Band Can Be Your Life, and a crucible of world-class song writing talent that includes ex-Trucker Jason Isbell and founding fathers Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. Over the course of 14 studio albums and almost three decades of hardscrabble touring, the group has honed a sound and sensibility that’s ragged, steaming, sentimental, political, smartass, heartfelt and heartbreaking, with hollered harmonies and white-knuckle guitar jams owing more to Lynyrd Skynyrd than the Allman Brothers, while also invoking Neil Young & Crazy Horse
New West Records is proud to present a remixed and remastered deluxe edition LP featuring a re-sequenced record as well as a third disc with multiple bonus tracks including a song “Mystery Song” that was recorded one night in Birmingham. tLead Singer, Patterson Hood explains, “Birmingham” and “Moved” were originally part of Act I on original CD release.
This is the first vinyl version to feature “Moved” and we felt that “Birmingham” would be the best other song to move without messing up the story element of Betamax Guillotine. We moved them here to keep the vinyl sides within time of maximum high fidelity. (Under 23 minutes per mastering guidelines). In the process of re-mixing the original tracks for the album. We stumbled upon a mysterious track that was recorded late one night in Birmingham. None of us have any memory whatsoever of recording it. The song itself was never even written down, just made up on the spot while the tape was rolling. We’re calling it “Mystery Song.” It’s actually a keeper.”
By today’s standards, Act 1 should perhaps begin with a trigger warning. It opens with “Days Of Graduation”, Hood’s explicit narration of a bloody car wreck delivered in a distorted voice suggesting a police radio dispatcher. That’s the introduction to “Ronnie And Neil”, a song unpacking a famous songwriter beef that, in 1970s American rock’n’roll terms, was no less seismic than this year’s Kendrick Lamar vs Drake dust-up. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”, of course, was an answer record to Young’s “Southern Man” and “Alabama,” songs confronting the uglier legacies of the American South. Hood’s offering is no less bold, invoking the 1963 Birmingham church bombings that killed four black girls (a turning point in the Civil Rights movement) alongside an image of Aretha Franklin coming to Alabama “to record that sweet soul music / to get that Muscle Shoals sound.” If some verses are less than factually accurate – it’s maybe a stretch to say Van Zant and Young became “good friends,” or that “Neil helped carry Ronnie in his casket to the ground” – the song still amply supports Hood’s narrative argument that “Us Southern men need both of them around.”
Songs like “Women Without Whiskey”, a boozy fist-pumper that conjures a losing battle with problem drinking; closely followed by “Zip City”, an affectingly frank jam about adolescent male sexual frustration, questionable as some of its verses might be by current standards.
This 3-disc, Indie Exclusive clear vinyl deluxe edition comes packed in a foil stamped rigid slipcase with the original album packaged as a 2xLP set in gatefold. The 3rd LP is packaged in a separate jacket. Each record comes with a 28-page book that is given the spot gloss treatment throughout (also available on standard black vinyl) .
The Fat Angel Sings 