DBT’s Southern Rock Opera
I grew up listening to a lot of Southern Rock and yes, it is what it is, but I happen to love it. On my birthday, I’ve actually given up the cute little derriere of Jon Bon Jovi and have chosen to spend it with the Kings of Leon instead – I’m opting for good music over good looks (not to say these boys aren’t cute, cuz they are).
But yesterday, at the start of Jazz Fest, I started the event with Drive-By Truckers – awesome – Booker T was sitting in with them and they made for a great say hello to Jazz Fest 2009 in my opinion.
A short bio on them is they are an alternative country band and although they have earned much critical acclaim, the band has nonetheless struggled for recognition. In 2001 music critics fell over themselves searching for new superlatives to describe their latest album: “Southern Rock Opera is a brilliantly realized double CD of raw, heartfelt rock that destroys Southern stereotypes while offering an insightful look at coming of age in Alabama in the 1970s,” wrote Larry Katz in the Boston Herald. The band’s mixture of styles, however, left the Truckers in a nebulous position: “Drive-By Truckers make music that is too rock for country, yet probably a little too country for straight-ahead rock fans,” wrote Dan MacIntosh in Country Standard Time. These blurred musical boundaries, combined with the release of Decoration Day in 2003 prompted Michael Long in the National Review Online to comment: “The Drive-By Truckers remain the best unheralded band in popular music today.”
Here is Patterson Hood singing a song from the Opera they produced. The guy smiling next to me knew every word to every song. He came over from Atlanta where he had just seen them three nights in a row: