New West Records
2004
The Dirty South
About This Album
When you've named your band the Drive-By Truckers and your first three albums are called Pizza Deliverance, Gangstabilly, and Alabama A** Whuppin', you might have a hard time at first convincing folks that you aren't joking. But the Drive-By Truckers proved that they were most definitely not kidding with 2001's brilliant double-disc Southern Rock Opera, and 2003's Decoration Day actually upped the ante on what might have been a fluke masterpiece with its dark and thoroughly absorbing chronicle of hard times in the American South. With The Dirty South, the DBTs have crafted an equally effective companion piece to Decoration Day that plays on the gangsta rap reference of its title with a set of vividly rendered portraits of life along the margins of respectability below the Mason-Dixon line, from laid-off factory rats dealing drugs to feed their kids to Alabama gangsters determined to shut down the cops who made their daughters cry. From the first low, metallic stomps from Brad Morgan's kick drum on "Where the Devil Don't Stay," it's clear that The Dirty South isn't going to be a good-time party most of the way, and while there are some brilliant anthemic rockers on this album (most notably "The Day John Henry Died," "Carl Perkins' Cadillac," and "Never Gonna Change"), and Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, and Jason Isbell have grown into a force to be reckoned with as both guitarists and songwriters, there's more than a little blood, fear, doubt, shame, and simple human tragedy at the heart of these stories.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,5,7,12 and 13)

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