Drive-By Truckers Album: “Southern Rock Opera”

Southern Rock Opera is more than just a collection of great songs. This double album comes straight from the heart of the boys from North Alabama that make up the Drive By Truckers. If you have ever loved 70's southern rock this album will take you back. Above all, it is an homage to the late great Ronnie van Zandt fronted-Lynyrd Skynyrd, a band much under-appreciated by the mainstream musical press, but not by the DBT. The music on this album is lovingly crafted and so are the lyrics. Every song tells a story and means something. It is probably the only concept album I've ever heard that really feels like it has to be listened to straight through. I did just that on Highway 421 in rural western North Carolina just a few weeks ago and I wasn't disappointed. If you are a displaced Southerner like myself who came of age in the 70s or 80s, this album will take you back to a time when Skynyrd blared on the stereo and you ate that beef stew, collards, and butter beans at your friends' house. Mrs. Bishop sure could cook! This album really needs to be listened to straight through to get the whole story, but if you insist on me listing standout cuts, I'll do it. 'Guitar Man Upstairs' is like 'Gimme Three Steps 2002'. 'Shut Up and Get on the Plane' is another classic southern rocker. And 'Zip City' is probably my current favorite, a song with more emotion than most artists muster up in a lifetime's worth of songs. If you care at all about supporting great music, buy this album. I downloaded the whole thing from Audiogalaxy, but it was so great and the DBT deserve the support so much, I also bought the album directly from them. Do yourself a big favor and pick this one up.

Sometimes great art is built from remembrance of things past and "Southern Rock Opera" evokes the American South of the 1970s through an oddly affecting homage to Lynyrd Skynyrd. It is hard to explain what it feels like to be of a male white Southerner of a certain age, but one could do much worse than to hand your non-Southern (ok, Yankee) spouse, or kid, or friend, a copy of "Southern Rock Opera" and disappear for a couple of hours. Patterson Hood's sermon, "The Three Great Alabama Icons" is simply stunning, and worth the price of admission alone. The following track, "Wallace," describing George Wallace's arrival in Hell from Satan's point of view, is truly vicious, hysterically funny, and surely the only song in all of rock music to mention Fob James.

This CD is a must for any old Southern Rocker like myself. Other than the fact it pays homage to Lynyrd Skynyrd, it is one heck of a CD. Patterson Hood's songs are real and very descriptive. "Ronnie and Neil" is straight out of Skynyrd's style. "Southern Thing" says it all. I wore this out after I bought it. I saw DBT a couple months ago performing Southern Rock Opera. I just shut my eyes and travelled back to the 70's. BUY THIS CD!!!!!

Don't let the dated catergory of "concept album" turn you away - this is much more than that - it is raw, loud rock at its best and there is not a filler to be found. This powerful, literate and thourghly realized record tells a coherent and well written story but the story doesn't, as one might expect, detract from the music which is full of punk rock energy and arena rock hubris that actually delivers. This is a rare achievement - usually rock revivalists are annoying, of the "are you ready to rock?" variety, or too hip and ironic to admit they do love to rock and so can't stop smirking. Today it is refreshing to find compentent songwriters like Patterson Hood who can remind us of what was so great about grand, powerful rock music to begin with. What is most refreshing, however, is how literate the whole thing is. Patterson is a smart guy who knows his subject. I grew up in the south and can vouch that PH has nailed it but you don't have to be southerner to love this album. Anyone who has ever "turned it up" and listened with closed eyes knows the feeling of a real rock album and how rare that is to find these days. Don't miss this one.

Drive-By Truckers hail from the dirty south of Athens, Georgia. The area has been known for being laughed at and unfairly treated as a place full of barefoot, backwater hicks with little intelligence and a hatred of people that aren't connected to them. Drive-By Truckers destroys all the stereotypes with this one record alone. A smart, harsh, and demanding listen, Southern Rock Opera both mocks and loves the South on every level possible. To begin with, the album destroys the myth of Lynyrd Skynyrd's hatred of Neil Young (the band were actually going to record Neil Young's Powderfinger, but never got to due to the plane crash). Along with the loose concept of Skynyrd's life, there are powerful odes to southern living, with concepts such as George Wallace burning in hell (Wallace), lonely love on Highway 72 (This Highway's Mean), a recollection of how rock and roll saved a young kid's life (Let There Be Rock), and several songs about friends who are no longer living (Plastic Flowers On The Highway, Dead Drunk & Naked).

Patterson Hood, the singer of the band, sings with a deep southern drawl, and is very convincing at destroying these so-called myths and legends. The unsung hero of this band, of course, is Mike Cooley, who provides some of the best ballads the band has penned to date, such as Zip City, 72, and the concert showcase, Women Without Whiskey. Another disregarded hero is Rob Malone, who has a powerful voice not unlike Berry Oakley of the Allman Brothers. He really brings Satan to life in the rocking Wallace, and the grooving Cassie's Brother.

This is a powerful rock and roll album and a statement to the world to forget all the evil superstitious nonsense and stereotypes of the South. DBT shows that the South ain't a bad place to live, as long as you man up and take some pain with the pleasure.