Drive-By Truckers - The Dirty South [2LP]

The Dirty South caught Drive-By Truckers with three great songwriters in the band at once, and the 2004 album is a widescreen, whiskey-soaked portrait of Southern myth, history and hard luck.

Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell each brought their best work to the record, released by New West as the follow-up to Decoration Day. It digs into Southern legend and working-class life with a novelist's eye, refusing to romanticise the region or to sneer at it. The three-guitar attack gives even the quieter songs a heavy, rumbling backbone.

Cooley's "Where the Devil Don't Stay" kicks things off with a gritty, rolling riff, and Hood's "Puttin' People on the Moon" is a furious, heartbreaking look at a town left behind while the country chased the stars. Isbell's "Danko/Manuel" is a tender tribute to two lost members of The Band, and his "The Day John Henry Died" reimagines the folk hero for an age of machines. At the centre sits a three-song cycle about the lawman Buford Pusser, drawing on the story behind Walking Tall, which gives the album its novelistic sweep.

It is one of the defining Southern rock albums of its era, and many fans consider it the band's finest hour. Put it on loud and let the stories unfold.

Tracklist

1. Where the Devil Don't Stay
2. Tornadoes
3. Day John Henry Died
4. Puttin' People on the Moon
5. Carl Perkins' Cadillac
6. Sands of Iwo Jima
7. Danko/Manuel
8. Boys from Alabama
9. Cottonseed 1
10. Buford Stick 1
11. Daddy's Cup 1
12. Never Gonna Change 1
13. Lookout Mountain 1
14. Goddamn Lonely Love