The Dirty South is the sixth
albumAn album or record album is a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public. The most common way is through commercial distribution, although smaller artists will often distribute directly to the public by selling their albums at live concerts or on their websites.-...
by
AlabamianAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States of America. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its...
country rockCountry-rock is a musical genre formed from the fusion of rock with country music, with its country origins being initially referenced to the rockabilly music of the 1950s....
group
Drive-By TruckersDrive-By Truckers are an alternative country and Southern rock band based in Athens, Georgia, though three out of five members are originally from The Shoals region of Northern Alabama...
, released in 2004.
The Dirty South is Drive-By Truckers' second concept album (the first being
Southern Rock OperaSouthern Rock Opera is the third studio album by the alt country band Drive-By Truckers. It was a double album and released in 2001. Covering an ambitious range of subject matter from the politics of race to 70s stadium rock, Southern Rock Opera either imagines, or filters, every topic through the...
). The album, like its predecessors, examines the state of the South, and unveils the hypocrisy, irony, and tragedy that continues to exist.
Where The Devil Don't Stay was inspired by a poem by Mike Cooley's uncle Ed Cooley, and was recorded in one take.
Patterson Hood's
Tornadoes was originally written in 1988 in reaction to the closing concert for the Adam’s House Cat
Nightmare Tour.
The Dirty South is the sixth
albumAn album or record album is a collection of related audio or music tracks distributed to the public. The most common way is through commercial distribution, although smaller artists will often distribute directly to the public by selling their albums at live concerts or on their websites.-...
by
AlabamianAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States of America. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its...
country rockCountry-rock is a musical genre formed from the fusion of rock with country music, with its country origins being initially referenced to the rockabilly music of the 1950s....
group
Drive-By TruckersDrive-By Truckers are an alternative country and Southern rock band based in Athens, Georgia, though three out of five members are originally from The Shoals region of Northern Alabama...
, released in 2004.
The Dirty South is Drive-By Truckers' second concept album (the first being
Southern Rock OperaSouthern Rock Opera is the third studio album by the alt country band Drive-By Truckers. It was a double album and released in 2001. Covering an ambitious range of subject matter from the politics of race to 70s stadium rock, Southern Rock Opera either imagines, or filters, every topic through the...
). The album, like its predecessors, examines the state of the South, and unveils the hypocrisy, irony, and tragedy that continues to exist.
Where The Devil Don't Stay was inspired by a poem by Mike Cooley's uncle Ed Cooley, and was recorded in one take.
Patterson Hood's
Tornadoes was originally written in 1988 in reaction to the closing concert for the Adam’s House Cat
Nightmare Tour.
The Nightmare Tour set list was composed almost exclusively of songs containing metaphors or imagery of trains, but the lack of the tour’s success forced Hood and his band to abandon the concept and start afresh. Hood read an eyewitness account of the tornado in the local paper the next day and wrote
Tornadoes after reading her statement that "it sounded like a train."
Puttin’
While most of the songs on
The Dirty South are written as stories, Jason Isbell's song, "The Day John Henry Died," uses southern imagery to tell the story of his grandfather. Isbell said that it was about "winning the battle but losing the war."
People on the Moon, written by Hood, tells the story of a town downriver of Huntsville and their "rocket envy" or economic depression due to the negative environmental and economic effects of
NASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the United States government, responsible for the nation's public space program. NASA was established by the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, replacing its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for...
’s
Marshall Space Flight CenterThe George C. Marshall Space Flight Center , the original home of NASA, is a lead center for propulsion, Space Shuttle propulsion, Space Shuttle external tank, crew training and payloads, International Space Station design and construction, for computers, networks, and information management...
.
Mike Cooley’s
Carl Perkin’s Cadillac recounts the celebrated
Sun RecordsSun Records is a record label founded in Memphis, Tennessee, starting operations on March 27 1952.
Founded by Sam Phillips, Sun Records was known for giving notable musicians such as Elvis Presley , Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Buddy McNeil,...
,
Sam PhillipsSamuel Cornelius Phillips , better known as Sam Phillips, was an American record producer who played an important role in the emergence of rock and roll as the major form of popular music in the 1950s...
, and the music industry in general.
The Sands of Iwo Jima recounts Hood's experiences with his great uncle while growing up in North Alabama.
Isbell's second track on the album, "Danko/Manuel," is a departure from the usual southern gothic lyrical style written by Cooley and Hood. Originally Isbell tried to tell the story of
Rick DankoRichard Clare "Rick" Danko was a Canadian musician and singer, best known as a member of The Band.-Early years :...
,
Richard ManuelRichard George Manuel was a Canadian composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his contributions and membership in The Band.- Early life :...
, and
The BandThe Band was a rock music group active from 1967 to 1976 and again from 1983 to 1999. The original group consisted of four Canadians: Robbie Robertson ; Richard Manuel ; Garth Hudson ; and Rick Danko , and...
's demise, but found the scope of the concept too difficult to actually do justice to their story, and instead shifted the concept to a telling of life of a musician through the eyes and actions of Danko and Manuel.
The Dirty South contains a three song suite ("The Boys From Alabama", "Cottonseed", and "The Buford Stick") about Sheriff
Buford PusserBuford Hayse Pusser was the Sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee , from 1964 to 1970. Pusser is known for his virtual one-man war on moonshining, gambling, and other vices on the Mississippi-Tennessee border. His story has directly inspired several books, movies and two movie remakes and at least...
.
The Boys From Alabama was inspired by the misconceptions and “really bad movies” of the Redneck Mafia and recounts the movie
Walking TallWalking Tall is a 1973 semi-biopic of Sheriff Buford Pusser, a former professional wrestler-turned-lawman in McNairy County, Tennessee. It starred Joe Don Baker as Pusser...
from a "different point of view". Hood felt that telling the story from "the bad guy's" point of view would be more interesting. Cooley's "Cottonseed" tells a story of corruption, crime, killing, greed, fixed elections, guns, drugs, whores and booze and uses subtle imagery to provide a very negative interpretation of Pusser. Hood's "The Buford Stick" completes the suite by providing examples of the negative effects of Pusser's actions while offering a less glorified view of the mythology surrounding Pusser.
Cooley's last song on the album is a story about a father who instills a love of racing in his son. Interestingly
Daddy's Cup is the only song on
The Dirty South that does not revolve around a negative experience, instead offering a lighter touch to the overall 'dirty' feel of the album.
Isbell's
Never Gonna Change is simply about a stubborn man who
refuses to live in fear.
Lookout Mountain was written around 1990 by Hood, and can be heard in it's original incarnation on Adam's House Cat's LP
Town Burned Down. It was a last minute addition to the album, beating out another Hood song entitled
Goode's Field Road. Goode's Filed Road was eventually rerecorded for 2008's
Brighter Than Creation's DarkBrighter Than Creation's Dark is the eighth album released by Drive-By Truckers. It was released on January 22, 2008 in the United States. Recorded during and after the acoustic Dirt Underneath Tour, the album features a more stripped down, and country based sound not seen since their sophomore...
, however the cut that was dropped from
The Dirty South managed to see the light of day on
The Fine Print: A Collection of Oddities and RaritiesThe Fine Print is a collection of unreleased material by the Drive-By Truckers mostly recorded throughout the making of their albums Decoration Day and The Dirty South. It features album artwork and a sample of recent concert posters by Wes Freed...
.
The Dirty South ends with Isbell's
Goddamn Lonely Love. Though described by Isbell as a love song,
Goddamn Lonely Love heavily and painfully delves into the loneliness associated with love. Isbell wrote the song for Shonna Tucker.
As of February 2008,
The Dirty South is Drive-By Truckers' best selling album.
Track listing
- "Where the Devil Don't Stay" (Cooley)
- "Tornadoes" (Hood)
- "The Day John Henry Died" (Isbell)
- "Puttin' People on the Moon" (Hood)
- "Carl Perkins' Cadillac
A song from the Drive-By Truckers' 2004 album The Dirty South, Carl Perkins' Cadillac sympathetically tells the story of one of the giants of rock and roll, Sam Phillips of Sun Records, and the respect shown to him by his stable of artists in the mid 1950's. One of the lines in the song states, "Mr...
" (Cooley)
- "The Sands of Iwo Jima" (Hood)
- "Danko/Manuel" (Isbell)
- "The Boys From Alabama" (Hood)
- "Cottonseed" (Cooley)
- "The Buford Stick" (Hood)
- "Daddy's Cup" (Cooley)
- "Never Gonna Change" (Isbell)
- "Lookout Mountain" (Hood)
- "Goddamn Lonely Love" (Isbell)
Personnel
- Mike Cooley – guitar, vocals
- Patterson Hood – guitar, vocals
- Jason Isbell
Jason Isbell is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Greenhill, Alabama, near Muscle Shoals. -Background:Almost all of Isbell's family, except his parents, were musicians, and his father was an avid music listener...
– guitar, vocals
- Brad Morgan – drums
- Shonna Tucker – bass
Chart performance
| Chart |
Provider(s) |
Peak
position |
Certification |
Sales/
shipments |
| Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling new music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
(U.S.) |
Billboard |
147 |
Not certified |
N/A |
| Billboard Top Independent Albums (U.S.) |
14 |
| Billboard Top Heatseekers (U.S.) |
5 |