Drive-By Truckers’ two principals, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, began the band in 1986 when they were both living in Athens, Georgia. They shared roles as co-singers-guitarists-songwriters. Hood was steeped in a very southern kind of music; his father David Hood was bassist with the crack Muscle Shoals rhythm section The Swampers, who played on sessions for Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge and more.
From their earliest days, the Truckers’ line-up was fluid. The core elements of their sound, though, have remained rocksolid. Theirs is a gumbo of southern rock, country, classic rock, 60s soul and R&B. Hood and Cooley’s lyrics are populated by hard-bitten characters living harder lives in the milieu of the Deep South.
The Truckers’ first two albums, Gangstablity (1998) and Pizza Deliverance (1999), were rough-and-ready, and self-released. Hood and Cooley toured tirelessly behind them with assorted bandmates. At the same time, Hood was also developing agrander concept; a Southern Gothic drama melding elements of his own Alabama childhood with the story of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s rise and subsequent crash into the Mississippi swamplands.
Over the three years Hood worked it up with the band, Southern Rock Opera evolved into a sweeping double album recorded in 2001. They raised $23,000 in loans from fans, friends and family to have 5,000 copies pressed and self-released. The following year, it was picked up and re-released worldwide by Nashville-based indie label Lost Highway.
Southern Rock Opera set the template for the band. Its sound was bone-hard, yet soulful too. It also marked the beginning of a second long-standing relationship with Wes Freed, whose distinctive designs graced their record sleeves and merchandise up to his death in September last year.
Jason Isbell, a third hotshot singer-guitarist-songwriter, joined the line-up for the tour to support Southern Rock Opera, sparking a golden period stretching over three more excellent albums and to 2006’s A Blessing And A Curse. Ever since Isbell boozed his way out of the band, Hood and Cooley have kept the flag flying, and to date eight more studio albums have been released.
Not a dud among them, 2016’s American Band and The Unraveling from 2020 adding biting state-of-the-nation commentary to the Truckers’ armoury. Last year’s Welcome to Club XIII testified to their enduring power.
Drive-By Truckers: The Complete Dirty South is out now.
