DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS TOUR OF THE DIRTY SOUTH REMAINS THEIR GREATEST JOURNEY

The Dirty South
2004

579 Miles To Go

If Southern Rock Opera is Drive-By Truckers' Quadrophenia, then The Dirty South is their Who's Next.

It's impossible not to love all four, and, at the same time, prefer the latter pair.

Southern Rock Opera and The Dirty South offer enough regional history to be college courses. Best yet, both are told with thunderstorms of guitars and the even-handed storytelling of Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley on both and the addition of Jason Isbell for 2004's The Dirty South.

It is the second of a three-album, six-year run for Isbell with DBT that includes Decoration Day (2003) and A Blessing And A Curse (2006). During most of this time, Isbell was married to the band's bassist Shonna Tucker. (Tucker joined the band after him and eventually left in December 2011.)

The Dirty South remains the Truckers' greatest journey because of an almost equal splitting of songs among its principles, the clever writing of each, its real-life legends, and a backbone of crunching guitar work.

Here's how Hood describes it in the liner notes, "Welcome to The Dirty South. It's a tough place to make a living, but we ain't complainin', just doing what we got to do. Trying to raise our kids and love our women. Do right by the ones we love. But don't fuck with us or we'll cut off your head and throw your body over a spillway at the Wilson Dam."

Of the tales on The Dirty South, Hood writes and sings six, while Cooley and Isbell tackle four each.

As Isbell sings and writes on Outfit (from Decoration Day), "a Southern man tells better jokes." And, part of DBT's three-voice appeal is the varied Alabama accents in which they sing.

Hood is molasses smooth. Cooley brings more of a twang and Isbell sounds like a Muscle Shoals version of the Eagles' Glenn Frey.

On The Dirty South, Hood's  takes include Tornadoes, dealing drugs when the economy goes bad (Puttin' People on the Moon), the "grandparent generation" of World War II (The Sands of Iwo Jima), and the legend of Sheriff Buford Pusser (The Buford Stick).

Cooley sips the moonshine in Where The Devil Don't Stay, political corruption and crime on Cottonseed, and a legacy of dirt track racing that can be taken as a tribute to the Petty family, the Earnhardt's or scores of other less famous souls on Daddy's Cup.

The remaining Cooley number - Carl Perkins' Cadillac - rates among the top DBT numbers of all time with its retelling of Sun Records super heroes Sam Phillips, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and, of course, Perkins.

Isbell adds cynical grit to the man vs. machine industrial revolution (The Day John Henry Died), pays homage to The Band (Danko/Manuel), and spits defiantly at those who think Southerners need to evolve (Never Gonna Change).

His shining moment comes on the dark and brooding addiction of Goddamn Lonely Love that closes the record and is still a highlight of his live shows.

"And I could find another dream,
one that keeps me warm and clean
but I ain't dreamin' anymore, I'm waking up.
So I'll take two of what you're having and I'll take everything you got
to kill this goddamn lonely, goddamn lonely love."

Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit
2008

Isbell left Drive-By Truckers largely because of his divorce from Tucker.

In the split, she got the band and he got a solo career.

Drive-By Truckers steered down a mellower route and Isbell didn't have to share the musical wheel with any other drivers.

Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit is his second post-Truckers release and the first with his new posse that included guitarist Browan Lollar, keyboardist Derry deBorja, bassist Jimbo Hart and drummer Matt Pence.

deBorja, formerly of Son Volt, weaves his parts perfectly between Isbell and Lollar throughout their self-titled debut.

Musically, the songs move from slow and achy ballads to mid-tempo rockers to shades of Crazy Horse. They bring in the horns to take the lead on No Choice In The Matter and the Muscle Shoals spirit is alive in all of them.

Isbell's songwriting is always realistic, sometimes ironic and colorfully observational.

The character Mary of the opening domestic tragedy Seven-Mile Island sets the tone with the lines, "She used to say that she wanted a daughter/now she only wants a Saturday night."

Soldiers Get Strange tells the troubled tale of the veteran who comes home to find he and his wife have grown into strangers.

"You want her to try new things.
She reminds you she wears your ring
and after a couple drinks she's a little scared of you.
A good friend is hard to find.
You wish you could spend more time
towing civilian lines, but they're all scared of you."

There's plenty of heartache to go around on the rest of record, as well.

It's doubtful Isbell's break-ups with Tucker and DBT were part of his original plan, but consider them splits that opened the road to create even better tracks.

The Dirty South Song For The Soundtrack: Carl Perkins' Cadillac

Jason Isbell And The 400 Unit Song For The Soundtrack: Soldiers Get Strange

Running Data For Wednesday, June 12:
9.00 Miles
1:41:47

Mileage In The Change Jar: 0.57 Miles