Shelter: Shelter

The Dexateens: Shelter
[purchase]

I seem to be writing about my song selection process a lot lately, which may mean that I’m trying to fill space because I’m running out of songs that have particular meaning for me. I hope not, because that would be bad for a blogger who mostly responds to theme prompts, but we’ll see—and maybe I need to take another short sabbatical to recharge. I’m spending a good deal of time these days working on projects directly or indirectly related to my 40th college reunion in May, which I’m sure I’ll figure out a way to write about down the road, and that also explains why I’ve been writing once per theme more often than twice these days. Also, there’s work and family. And good TV. 

So, when I heard the theme, my first thought was a King Crimson song, but seriously, who really wants me to write about another King Crimson song, and an instrumental, at that? (The volume of my Crimson-related posts surprises even me, considering that they are not my favorite band. What is my favorite band? I really don’t know.) My second thought was to pick the obvious Rolling Stones song, but I’ve written about that before. There’s also a Dylan classic, but writing about Dylan can be heavy lifting, and I don’t have the patience for that right now. 

Which inevitably led me to an iTunes library search, where I landed upon today’s feature song, “Shelter,” by The Dexateens. Is it a great song? No. Is it a good song by an underappreciated band in the vaguely Americana genre? Yes. Which means that it’s a good one for me to write about. (Although having finished this post, I realize that I mentioned the band a few years ago).

The Dexateens were formed in the late 1990s in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, featuring singer-songwriters and guitarists Elliott McPherson and John Smith, with drummer Craig "Sweet Dog" Pickering and bassist Matt Patton. If that last name seems familiar, we’ll get there. Their name came not from the same source as Dexys Midnight Runners, but instead from a guitar pick that Smith’s brother had gotten signed by Dex Romweber, a musician that you might have heard of. Or not. Although he’s pretty good and it is a memorable name. Mixing punk with southern rock, The Dexateens’ self-titled debut album from 2004 is excellent—raw and rocking, and “Shelter” is a Stonesy-stomp. 

I’m not sure when I first heard about The Dexateens, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was in 2007, when their fine album Hardwire Healing was released, and it was co-produced by Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers and David Barbe, who has worked with the Truckers (as well as playing bass in Sugar). I suspect that this was the hook that got me to check out the band, which has de-emphasized punk over the years. After some personnel changes, the band broke up in 2010. Patton joined the Truckers on bass (and as the occasional Ramones cover singer), and also plays with The Dexateens, which re-formed in 2013. And, he co-owns a recording studio in Mississippi (where part of the Ramones cover video in the link was shot). Busy man. 

 So, check out The Dexateens if you aren’t familiar with them.

What If: Jason Isbell Never Left Drive-By Truckers

[purchase Live at the Shoals Theare] 

If you know me, or have read my blog posts (and frankly, there are too many to link to), you probably know that I’m a huge fan of both Jason Isbell and Drive-By Truckers. I first became aware of both of them when I received a copy of the Truckers’ album Decoration Day as a bonus from a record club. That serendipitous freebie helped to change my musical tastes, and led me to a number of bands and musicians that are now amongst my favorites. It’s a great album, and it was hard not to be impressed by the two songs written and sung by Jason Isbell, “Outfit” and “Decoration Day.” I later discovered that Isbell was new to the band, and was only in his mid-20s, younger than the other songwriters in the group, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. Although Isbell was only in the band for three albums, I think that many fans consider this to be one of their best periods, and possibly their best. 

It has been reported that Isbell had been asked to take a break from the band because his alcoholism and drug use had made him unreliable; when he refused, he was forced out of the band. Isbell began a solo career, sobered up, and eventually released Southeastern, a masterpiece, which, along with his subsequent albums, has solidified him as one of the best, if not the best, singer-songwriter in the Americana field, and he has the awards to justify that. 

After the departure of Isbell, the Truckers went through a period of lineup changes, and the release of a number of albums whose quality varied, but all of which were good, until the release of a run of fine, politically charged albums, the best of which, in my opinion, was 2016’s American Band. The Truckers, particularly Hood, were at the vanguard of a reassessment of southern identity, what Hood had called “the duality of the Southern thing,” in interviews and in articles in the press and online.

Isbell, too, hasn’t shied away from political statements on his albums, and on analyzing what being from the South means, and he recently became the poster child for artists insisting that venues require COVID testing for admission. 

So, what would have happened if Isbell had stayed a member of the Truckers? I’ll try to keep it simple, and when I post this in some fan groups on Facebook, I’m sure that people more knowledgeable about the people and situations involved will have their own ideas, but that’s sort of the point of alternative history, right? 

The darkest, saddest, timeline would have had Isbell clean up just enough to stay in the band, but never truly get clean and sober. While he continues to write great songs, and play great guitar, at some point, he gets in too deep with his addictions, never marries Amanda Shires, and like his close friend Justin Townes Earle, overdoses. 

I’d hope, though, for a better outcome—pressured by the members of the Truckers and other friends, Isbell cleans up and becomes an equal songwriting partner in the band, which goes on to greater success, as the 3-4 Isbell songs per album replace some of the weaker cuts, and albums such as American Band, which have little or no filler, become epic double CDs that receive both commercial and critical acclaim. Maybe, at some point, while the band is on a hiatus, Isbell releases a solo album or two, which highlight his individual talent. Maybe he eventually decides to leave the band to go solo, or maybe he’s happy in the band setting, with the occasional solo release or collaboration. 

Luckily, in the real world, Isbell and the Truckers reconciled. Back in 2013, right around the time that Southeastern came out, I went to the Clearwater Festival where both Isbell and Hood were scheduled for solo sets, and they sat in with each other for a song. In 2014, Hood, Cooley and Isbell performed at a benefit at the Shoals Theatre in Florence, Alabama, and there have been a few other instances of Hood and Isbell popping on stage during gigs. 

A couple of weeks ago, Isbell curated a two day festival, ShoalsFest, where both his band, the 400 Unit, and the Truckers, were scheduled to perform. So, if you want a sense of what it might have been like had Isbell had never left the Truckers, the video above is a performance of (most of) the song “Outfit,” featuring Hood and Cooley joining Isbell and the 400 Unit {the original video, of "Decoration Day," was taken down). But maybe an even better example is the video below, from the night after ShoalsFest, where Isbell joined the Truckers for a couple of songs. The sound isn’t great, but, damn. Just damn.

Muscle Shoals-I'll Take You There

The Staple Singers: I’ll Take You There
[purchase]

I’m a little surprised that I’ve never devoted a post to the great Mavis Staples—although she is mentioned at length in the In Memoriam piece that I wrote in January 2019 honoring her sister Yvonne. I’ve seen Mavis perform a few times, and every time she simply blew me away. She’s in her 80’s, has recorded amazing music her whole life—including a bunch of great albums over the past few years, and as I write this, is on tour, with dates scheduled in North America and Europe through next summer. If you get a chance to see her, do it, because sadly, she isn’t going to be around forever. And go see Mavis!, the movie from 2015 about her life, which is streamable. And while you are at it, make sure you see Summer of Soul, in which the young Mavis duets with her idol Mahalia Jackson, maybe the best performance in a movie filled with incredible performances. It’s on Hulu, but should be seen in a theater, unless you have a huge screen and big speakers. 

What makes Mavis Staples so great goes beyond her voice, or even her ability to interpret a song. She somehow is able to mix the gospel music she grew up on, with secular soul music and the protest and message music of the 1960s and beyond, and do it in a way that is both uplifting and surprisingly sexy (without being trashy). 

Her first No. 1 pop hit, “I’ll Take You There,” with her family group The Staple Singers, is a great example of this mix—and more. Recorded at the Muscle Shoals Studio and featuring the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (Eddie Hinton on lead guitar, David Hood on bass, Barry Beckett on piano, Roger Hawkins on drums, with additional guitar from Jimmy Johnson and Raymond Banks), with the Memphis Horns dubbed in later, its message can be interpreted as laying out the path to heaven, or to a world where the civil rights movement—still active when the song was released in 1972—had succeeded. And there’s something in Mavis’ delivery (much of which was ad libbed), which indicates that maybe she’s offering to lead to somewhere more private. 

What I didn’t know is that the introduction to the song and much of the melody and arrangement, are borrowed from/influenced by a reggae song, “The Liquidator,” by the Harry J Allstars. Check it out here. Al Bell, one of the owners of Stax Records, who wrote and produced the song, had brought a copy of “The Liquidator” to the sessions and played it for the musicians, who thought it was a demo, and not an actual released song. David Hood said, "The Liquidator thing, we didn't know what that was. As I recall, [Bell] came in and brought what they call a dub. It was like an acetate or something, a disk that you put on the record player and play. And it had no lyrics on it. We just thought it was an instrumental track that somebody had done for a song. And it was only years later when I found out that that had been a record." 

As we know from Seuras’ piece about the Muscle Shoals/Traffic connection, members of the rhythm section, including Hood and Hawkins, toured with Traffic, who regularly listened to Island labelmate Bob Marley and the Wailers’ album Catch A Fire, and as Hood recalled, "We kept hearing that. I thought, 'Wow, this is the greatest, wildest music I've ever heard.’" In fact, reggae influences permeate the entire album that “I’ll Take You There,” was on, Be Altitude: Respect Yourself.

Finally, here’s a nice piece by David Hood’s son Patterson, who you probably know from his regular job with Drive-By Truckers, about growing up in the Muscle Shoals area (including finding out that his father was the bass player on “I’ll Take You There”), and much more. Patterson’s a fine prose writer, as well as a great songwriter (which you probably know, if you’ve read my stuff here and elsewhere).

Mail: Take A Letter Maria

R.B. Greaves: Take A Letter Maria 

[purchase] 

I’ve written in the past about how I started paying attention to music in 1969. as a result of hearing WABC, the classic New York Top 40 station, in the station wagon that took me to my summer day camp. And that fall, I have a vague recognition of being in the car with my mother, and hearing “Take A Letter Maria” on our car radio, and proclaiming it a hit. I was 8 years old, and already thought that I was a music critic. And here I am, more than 50 years later, still pretending to be a music critic of sorts. 

The funny thing is that my 8 year old self was right. “Take A Letter Maria” became a No. 2 hit on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, blocked from the top spot by The 5th Dimension’s “Wedding Bell Blues,” also a great song. 

I’d be shocked if anyone reading this doesn’t know the song—it is sung from the perspective of a man who had just learned of his wife’s infidelity, and dictates a letter to his secretary, the titular Maria, informing his wife of their separation. At the end, he asks Maria to dinner. It’s a surprisingly peppy song, considering the subject matter, with Latin influences and mariachi horns. I think that the narrator is supposed to come off as a sympathetic character, trying to recover from the discovery that his marriage is over, and he’s been cuckolded. And overall, I think that holds up today, despite the fact that he breaks up with his wife by letter (the functional equivalent of the uncool breakup by text), and the fact that in today’s environment, asking out Maria would raise questions of power differentials and sexual harassment. To be fair, we don’t know whether Maria accepted the invitation. Also, I have to admit that the fact that he instructs Maria to “send a copy to my lawyer” makes me happy. 

“Take A Letter Maria” was written and recorded by R.B. Greaves, and I’d be shocked if most of the people reading this knew that, and if they did, if they knew anything else about Greaves. 

Greaves, who was the nephew of the great Sam Cooke, was raised on a Seminole reservation, but moved to England in 1963. A few years later, performing as Sonny Childe, and fronting a band called The TNT, Greaves became a popular live soul/R&B act in England and recorded a few singles, before leaving The TNT during the summer of 1967. (Without Childe/Greaves, The TNT became the backing band for P.P. Arnold, probably best known for her versions of “The First Cut is the Deepest” and “Angel of the Morning.”) 

Greaves’ big hit was recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, and featured the house musicians, including Donna Jean Thatcher (probably better known from her days with the Grateful Dead as Donna Jean Godchaux), Eddie Hinton, Jimmy Johnson and David Hood. And it was produced by Atlantic Records head Ahmet Ertegun (not even close to being best known as my ultimate boss during the summer of 1982). 

Greaves’ followup, a cover of the Bacharach/David song, “Always Something There to Remind Me,” stalled at No. 27 on the Billboard chart, and that, pretty much, was that for Greaves, although he continued recording into the 1970s. He died of prostate cancer in September 2012 at the age of 68.

Patterson Hood, of the Drive-By Truckers, who is the son of David Hood, the bass player on “Maria,” has covered the song during solo shows, sometimes with his father on bass. Here’s one such performance, in which Patterson talks about how the Rolling Stones wanted to record in Muscle Shoals in 1969, before leaving to perform at Altamont, and that on that day, Greaves recorded “Maria” during the day, and the Stones appeared at night to record “Brown Sugar.”

July: Armstrong

Nanci Griffith: Armstrong
[purchase]

It isn’t a particularly profound or original observation to point out that 1969 was a pivotal year. There were Woodstock and Altamont and tons of amazing albums, Nixon’s inauguration, the Stonewall Riots, the Mets won the World Series, the U.S. secretly bombed Cambodia while the antiwar movement gained strength, the Beatles had their picture taken on Abbey Road and performed for the last time, the Manson family went on a murder spree, Sesame Street debuted, and Ted Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. Just for starters.

But if you had to pick the number one event of 1969, you’d probably pick the small step for man, and giant leap for mankind—Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon, which took place in July, 1969. I was 8 when it happened, and I remember being allowed to stay up late to watch history being made. (Most of the other times I was allowed a late bedtime that year related to the Mets). As a kid in those days, there was little more exciting than watching rockets launch—we’d stare at the TV, waiting for the countdown, and what seemed like the slow climb of the rocket into space.  Which may be why MTV's early branding included videos of rockets and moonwalks. The moon landing was something truly amazing, especially when you consider that the watch I’m wearing now probably has more computing power in it than the entire Apollo 11 mission used.

While watching the landing, John Stewart, formerly of the Kingston Trio, wrote a song, “Armstrong,” which is about how despite all of the problems in the world, and our differences, everyone watched, or heard, about Armstrong’s amazing feat. I can honestly say that I never heard the song, but here it is:



(That’s the single version, which is different from the version released a few years later on Stewart’s album, Cannons In The Rain. I never heard that version either.)

The song has been covered a few times over the years, but the one I did hear was by Nanci Griffith, on her album Clock Without Hands. In fact, the album features three Stewart covers, including “Armstrong,” and Stewart plays acoustic guitar on the track. (Pete and Maura Kennedy, who I saw at Clearwater, contribute mandoguitar and vocals). It is a pleasant folk song, and Nancy Griffith’s distinctive vocal style works well. And the lyrics mention July.

The Dexateens, an underappreciated band from Alabama, released a song called “Neil Armstrong” a few years ago on their excellent album Hardwire Healing, which was produced by the Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood and David Barbe, who was in Sugar and has produced Truckers albums. Matt Patton, the Dexateens' bass player now fills that slot in the Truckers. Unlike the Stewart song, though, the Dexateens seem to be focusing more on how the moon shot, and his celebrity, affected Armstrong. And the lyrics also mention July.

Apparently, there are some people who believe that it was actually Louis Armstrong who was the first man to walk on the moon. He wasn’t, of course (although he sang “Moon River”), but he died in July—on the 6th, in 1971, at his home in Corona, Queens, about a mile from Shea Stadium, where the Mets lost 5-1 to the Expos.

Gold: The Golden Palominos

Golden Palominos: Boy(Go)
[purchase]

The legendary supergroups like Cream or Blind Faith or CSN&Y were attempts to join musicians famous from other projects into a, well, super group, but they often foundered due to the conflicting egos of the members. The Golden Palominos, often referred to as an “indie-rock supergroup,” was different, gathering changing groups of generally less famous artists for each album.

Originally founded in the early 1980s by Anton Fier, a drummer who had been an early member of, among other bands, The Feelies, the first incarnation of the Golden Palominos was filled with avant-garde musicians like Fred Frith, Arto Lindsay and Bill Laswell, many of whom were influenced by the “No Wave” movement and often had as much jazz influence as indie-rock. Their self-titled debut was experimental, noisy and even featured turntable scratching, a rarity outside of hip-hop in that era.

My introduction to the band was from their very different second album, 1985’s Visions of Excess, which was significantly more accessible. The original attraction was “Boy (Go),” featuring lead vocals from R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, and guitar from Richard Thompson. The album also featured vocals from John Lydon (a/k/a Johnny Rotten) and supergroup veteran Jack Bruce, as well as the debut appearance of singer Syd Straw, who is on the list of people who should be way more famous. Despite the unusual roster of musicians, the album hangs together pretty well, and is never dull. Also, there’s a great cover of Moby Grape’s “Omaha,” also sung by Stipe.

The Golden Palominos put out albums every few years throughout the 1980s and 1990s, a few of which I own, with a constantly changing group of performers, including Matthew Sweet, T-Bone Burnett, Bernie Worrell, Bob Mould and Bootsy Collins, with Stipe, Thompson and Straw dropping by occasionally, joining core members Fier, bassist Laswell and guitarist Nicky Skopelitis for, not surprisingly, varied sounds and results. In 2012 Fier, and a different group of musicians joined Kevn Kinney of Drivin’ & Cryin’ for a new album, A Good Country Mile. That album includes a cover of a Jason Isbell written Drive-By Truckers song, “Never Gonna Change.” (Self-promoting side note—Drivin’ & Cryin’ was the band that Trucker Patterson Hood was opening for when he saw the incident that inspired the song “Opening Act,” which you can read more about here.)

Give Fier and his Golden Palominos sidekicks credit for pushing the envelope, trying new things and always making interesting music. They cannot be pigeonholed, and if that hindered them from gaining an identity and becoming a true “supergroup,” it never prevented them from following their muse wherever it took them. In a world filled with artists mining the same groove until it turns into a rut (thanks, Nick Lowe), it is refreshing, if not always easy, to listen to a project like the Golden Palominos that constantly challenges.

Music Festivals: Newport Folk Festival 2012-Dawes

Dawes: A Little Bit of Everything (Live from Newport 2012)
[purchase the album that this song is on]

I have written about the trip that my wife and I took to the Newport Folk Festival back in 2012 a few times. It was our first time there, and it was a great experience, despite the fact that we got rained on both days. At a festival often identified with Bob Dylan, it was fitting that a hard rain did fall, and we unsuccessfully sought shelter from the storm, as we waited for our ship to come in and take us back to our hotel.

But I haven’t written about the moment at the festival that I remember most strongly. It was not a pleasant moment, and I’m willing to bet that my wife will be surprised when she reads this.

I’ve been a lawyer for a long time, and for a while before our Newport trip, I had not been happy at my job. Despite that, I stuck through it, because the pay wasn’t bad, and I had settled into somewhat of a rut—sort of like the one that Nick Lowe wrote about in “Rocky Road” (“The rut I was in had once been a groove”). By the time we went to Newport, the end was in sight, and I was looking for a new gig. I actually spent a good portion of my post-festival Newport vacation reviewing deposition transcripts using the Panera Bread’s free wi-fi (which was better than the hotel’s) for a summary judgment motion to try to stay in the senior partner’s good graces, to keep the paychecks coming in. I did a good job, I think, and I ended up creating a 45 page statement of undisputed facts from my Newport work. We lost the motion, and the trial (which I helped prepare for, but which took place as I was basically out the door.) So, as we were enjoying our time in Newport, I was very uneasy, because I didn’t know how long I would be staying at the firm, and had no alternatives, other than the risk of starting my own law practice.

One of the bands that I was excited to see at the festival was Dawes, a band that seems to have recently evolved into essentially the Newport Festival house band—supporting other musicians who don’t always travel with backup musicians, and often having other performers sit in with them. In fact, that is one big way that Newport differs from the other festival that we have gone to (and which I have written about), the hopefully-returning-in-2017 Clearwater Great Hudson River Revival. Although it does happen at Clearwater (seeing Jason Isbell and Patterson Hood sit in during each other’s solo set was a highlight, and there are other examples), it seems like more of a regular thing at Newport for people to play with each other. This adds a feeling of camaraderie and friendship to the music, and you get to hear interesting, often unique, combinations (like this great version of The Band’s “It Makes No Difference” by My Morning Jacket, with Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes, from the 2012 festival, that I missed waiting for a ferry to get us out of the rain).

Dawes’ sound is often compared to the Laurel Canyon sound of the 1970s—CSNY, Joni Mitchell, The Byrds, etc., with a bit of Band thrown it. And I also have to believe that they also were influenced by the Uncle Tupelo/Wilco/Son Volt/Jayhawks alt-country sound and artists like Ryan Adams. In keeping with their debt to the great confessional singer-songwriters, their lyrics often plumb emotional topics, which is certainly true about one of my favorite Dawes songs, “A Little Bit of Everything.” The song has three vignettes: the first, focusing on a man planning to jump from a bridge, not for any one reason, but for an accumulation of things, the second about an older man in a buffet line, musing over his life’s disappointments while deciding what to eat, and the third features a woman writing invitations to her wedding, and explaining to her fiancé why she was working so apparently humorlessly on the wedding planning. As the song’s writer, Taylor Goldsmith, explained in an interview, “each verse would provide the phrase with new meaning. In the first verse, it’s used to describe why life’s unlivable, in the second, what it takes to forget, and finally, what matters most about love.”

So, I’m sitting there, watching Dawes, getting toward the end of a great first Newport day, very much enjoying their set, when they launch into “A Little Bit of Everything,” in the version you can hear above. And the next thing I know, tears are streaming down my face. Was I identifying with the suicidal guy who was feeling overwhelmed? With the old guy at the buffet thinking about “when his bright future had left him”? Or the woman who reassured her fiancé about the power of finding the person you truly love? Clearly, it was a little bit of everything, but it affected me so profoundly.

I recovered, though, both at the festival, where we went on to see Amy Helm, Patty Griffin and the beginning of My Morning Jacket before we evacuated, but also professionally. I played out the string at my old job, and in March of 2013, I opened up my own practice. It hasn’t been easy, and there have been struggles, but I’ve learned an enormous amount and have never enjoyed being a lawyer as much.

That all being said, I still get emotional when I hear this song, which, I guess, shows that Mr. Goldsmith knows what he is doing.

Fireworks: Green Eyes and a Heart of Gold

The Lone Bellow: Green Eyes and a Heart of Gold
[purchase]

Most of the time, I’ve been posting at least twice to each theme, in part because I enjoy writing these things, and in part because the blog needs content. After my first post on the Reunion theme, I decided to wait until after I attended the Clearwater Festival to see whether something would spark a second post on that theme (like when Patterson Hood and Jason Isbell played together a couple of years ago). Unfortunately, I miscalculated, the theme ended between the two days of the festival, and here we are in the Fireworks theme. Which is kind of too bad, because, as it turns out, I actually found a few Reunion ideas over the weekend, starting with the fact that I spent Saturday listening to music with my wife, my sister and a cousin, sort of a reunion in and of itself, and Sunday, I got to hear old friends Lucy Kaplansky and Richard Shindell, who recently had a bit of a reunion themselves with their recent cover album as The Pine Hill Project. And after a crazy rain squall interrupted their set, on a stage hard by the Hudson River, they returned to play some of their solo work, including Kaplansky’s great, personal song entitled, yes, “Reunion.”

But I blew it, and now I have to write about Fireworks. I like fireworks. But they have to be serious fireworks—not the small town, shoot off a few blasts before ending with a nice finale type that they had for many years where I live (although they have been improving lately). No, I’m talking about the kind of fireworks that fill the sky with colored lights and make your stomach hurt from the booms.

I have a few fireworks memories, and at the risk of leaving myself without a second post subject, here are some of them, in rough chronological order.

After my junior year in college, my roommates Neal and Jon and I went to Europe. We were in Paris one evening, in Montmartre, when a crowd started to gather in front of the Sacré-Coeur Basilica. We had no idea what was going on, and since none of us spoke French, if there were any posted signs, we were clueless. Eventually, someone told us that there would be fireworks that evening, for a midsummer celebration. They were pretty great fireworks, especially because they were set off directly over the crowd. The consequences of that decision were apparently not considered, because flaming paper and debris began to fall over us, which was kind of scary. I don’t think they do it that way anymore.

I remember going to Shea Stadium in the 1980s, when the Mets were, as usual, bad, and Fireworks Night meant a rare full house. (Now, they do more than one, which just seems excessive). I remember sitting way up in the upper deck a few times for the excellent pyrotechnics. There was this guy who sat up there, a heavy guy with a thick beard known as “Fuzzy,” who insisted that the airplanes that flew over Shea were “taking a big risk” flying over the stadium as the fireworks were exploding. Fuzzy was, clearly, an idiot. However, to this day, I insist on repeating “They’re taking a big risk” every time I see a plane fly overhead during a fireworks display.

Also Mets related is my third story--I was going to watch the Fourth of July fireworks on the East River from the roof of my friend Joe’s apartment building in 1985. I remember it being quite a wild party, but even more memorable than the fine display in the sky were the fireworks at the Mets/Braves game that night in Atlanta, which we followed during the night and into the early morning. Often considered one of the craziest games ever, it went 19 innings and ended at 4 a.m. The Mets were winning 7-4 going into the 8th inning. The Braves went up 8-7 in the bottom of the 8th, and due to two long rain delays, it was near midnight when the 9th inning started. It was Fireworks Night in Atlanta, but most of the fans left, assuming that they would be cancelled due to the length of the game. The Mets tied the game up in the 9th, and it went to extra innings. The Mets scored 2 in the 13th, and the Braves tied it up again. It dragged on the 18th, and the Mets took the lead. The Braves were down to their last player, Rick Camp, a relief pitcher who was an awful hitter. Of course, he hit the only home run of his career to tie it. But in the top of the 19th, the Mets plated 5. The Braves answered back with 2 more, and the tying run at the plate was Camp. He struck out to end the game, and at 4 a.m., the Braves shot off their fireworks, scaring their neighbors.

The following year, 1986, was the centennial celebration of the Statue of Liberty, and New York threw an enormous party. There were speeches, concerts, Tall Ships, and what was, until that time, the largest fireworks display ever in the world. I remember that it was hot, crowded, and that the fireworks were spectacular. I also remember that somehow, no one seemed to realize that the subway would be mobbed immediately after the fireworks ended, and we all moved slowly, trying to stay together, as we were herded toward the few open entrances. I remember that the train thankfully was air conditioned, and that it was so crowded on the trains that strangers sat on people’s laps to squeeze more bodies onto the cars.

My son was born in April, 1990, and I think that it was in 1991 that my wife and I thought that it would be a good idea to take him to the Fourth of July fireworks. We started by going to a barbecue restaurant on the Upper West Side, then took the subway, with Adam in his stroller, downtown, then walked over to the East River to watch. Almost immediately after they started, the kid understandably got scared and started to cry. We decided to leave and take a cab home. Of course, the traffic was crazy, and we were stopping and starting all the way home. As we got sort of close to our apartment, Adam threw up in the cab, which did not make us popular with the driver. We finally got home, threw the kid in the bath to clean of the vomit, then cleaned ourselves off. My wife still, nearly a quarter of a century later, wrongly believes that this incident demonstrated bad parenting. I think it was just a well-intentioned mistake that had no lasting negative effect on the boy, who seems to like fireworks just fine.

Finally, starting in 1996, to celebrate the university’s 250th anniversary, Princeton began to have a fireworks show during Reunions (yep, I came back to that theme anyway). The following year, at my 15th Reunion, we saw the display, which was pretty incredible. In a flashback to my Montmartre experience, flaming debris landed in some dry grass and a brush fire started, which was quickly extinguished. The Reunions fireworks continue to impress (we saw it again at the 20th, 25th and 30th). The picture above, though, is by my friend and classmate Noel Valero, from this year’s show, and it won the reader photography competition sponsored by the Princeton Alumni Weekly. (One of my wife’s pictures from Reunions, of a little baby, was chosen as an editor’s favorite.)

And while we are bringing things full circle, back to Clearwater. On Sunday, I arrived late after coaching a youth soccer game (my boys scored three at the end to win 3-2, a heck of a way to end a season), and was confronted with a choice. Toshi Reagon, who in some ways embodies the festival as much as anyone—the daughter of Freedom Singers and civil rights activists Bernice Johnson Reagon and Cordell Hull Reagon, the goddaughter of festival founder Pete Seeger and named after Pete’s wife, she is also a political and lesbian activist and a kick-ass performer. Or The Lone Bellow, one of my favorite new Americana bands. My wife chose Toshi, and I went for the Lone Bellow, on the theory that Toshi is likely to be there next year, but I wasn’t sure that The Lone Bellow would. They really put on a great set, although it was distractingly hot. And they sang this song, which mentions New York Fourth of July fireworks, and the subway. If it only mentioned Reunions, Paris and the Mets, it really would have tied everything together, but you can’t have everything.

Wedding: Drive-By Truckers’ Decoration Day Album

[purchase]

I’ve written about the Drive-By Truckers many times, maybe more than any other band, in part because they are one of my favorites, and, I think, in part because their songs tend to be about unusual topics, lending themselves to discussion on a theme-based blog such as this.

That the Decoration Day album was my gateway drug to the Truckers was discussed in a prior post, but in thinking about the Wedding theme, it struck me that many of the songs on the album, in some way, related to weddings, or at least, to marriage or getting married, which is close enough. And I’m not even going to get into the fact that at least three of the songs on the album were written by Patterson Hood in reaction to the breakdown of his marriage.

Decoration Day starts off with “The Deeper In,” which is about Patty and Allen Muth, who were, at the time, the only couple in the United States who were imprisoned for consensual sibling incest. Which sounds pretty bad, but there are many extenuating circumstances, not the least of which was that because their own parents were pretty awful people who lost their own parental rights, the couple at issue never met until Patty was 18 years old. They held themselves out as married, although they weren’t, and had four children, who were taken from them. You can read an article about them that was in Esquire magazine here (Hood changed the location from Wisconsin to Michigan in the song to make the last line rhyme better). Following the United States Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas striking down homosexual sodomy laws, Allen Muth appealed his conviction, but the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed his suit based on a narrow, and criticized, interpretation of Lawrence as being limited only to homosexual sodomy cases. Coincidentally, Allen Muth was, for most of his working life, a long haul trucker. Here’s a live version of the song recorded in Louisville: in 2010.



The fourth song on Decoration Day is “Marry Me,” one of the band’s best rockers. Written by Mike Cooley, it is filled with the clever wordplay that makes his songs so much fun. It’s hard to pick a favorite. There are the opening lines:

Well, my daddy didn’t pull out, but he never apologized
Rock and Roll means well, but it can’t help tellin’ young boys lies. 

Or the end of the second verse:

There’s a fool on every corner, on every street, in every one
and I’d rather be your fool nowhere than go somewhere and be no one's 

 Or the last line before the final chorus:

Just cause I don’t run my mouth don’t mean I got nothing to say.

According to Cooley, the song was inspired by a friend who, during sex, yelled out the name of a former girlfriend, Mary, and, thinking quickly, changed it to “Marry me.”

Here’s a version of the song recorded in the band’s hometown, Athens, Georgia in 2013, at the actual wedding of Jenn Bryant, long-time member of the extended DBT family.



Finally, “My Sweet Annette,” tells the tale of Hood’s great uncle (not the same one he wrote about in “The Sands of Iwo Jima”) who ditched his betrothed, Annette, at a pre-wedding party and eloped with the maid of honor, Marilee. In the song, Hood provides some moral ambiguity—his uncle and Marilee never intended to hurt Annette, but, as the song notes, Lord have mercy when two people get alone, and you can sense the guilt he had in leaving Sweet Annette . . . standing at the altar.

This version of the song, recorded in 2012 in Gainesville, includes fiddle from Scott Danborn, of Centro-Matic, who played on the album track.



O.K. One more—Jason Isbell, who joined the Truckers in time to contribute two possibly perfect songs to Decoration Day, released his first solo album in 2007, after leaving the band. That album, Sirens of the Ditch included a song, “Shotgun Wedding,” that begs to be included here. It is, reportedly, about a creepy acquaintance of Isbell’s who liked pregnant women.

Songs South: The Southern Thing/The Three Great Alabama Icons

The Drive-By Truckers: The Southern Thing  
The Drive-By Truckers: The Three Great Alabama Icons
[purchase]

For our last theme, Jukebox, I somehow figured out a way to write about the Gettysburg Battlefield. However, the connection between this theme, Songs South, and the Civil War, not to mention the war’s continuing influence on American culture as we approach the 150th anniversary of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, is certainly more obvious. Being born in, and having lived my whole life in the North, though, I have to admit that I don’t have personal knowledge of what Southerners think, and to be fair, not all Southerners, or Northerners, for that matter, think the same thing.

But what I want to start off by discussing, and I’ll get to the music eventually, is the fact that throughout the South, Confederate politicians, generals and other “heroes” are honored with monuments, school names, and maybe most egregiously, by the Federal Government with at least 10 Army bases named for generals who took up arms against the very forces that now honor them (and in other inexplicable ways). President Obama, the country’s first African-American president (whose wife’s maternal great-great-great-grandmother, Melvinia Shields, was a slave) has even sent a wreath to be laid at the Confederate Memorial in the Arlington National Cemetery (on land that was formerly Robert E. Lee’s home, and which is bordered by the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway), despite a petition signed by many prominent historians urging him not to do so. To again reference petition signer Professor McPherson, “I don’t think it appropriate for a president to send a wreath honoring a group that tried to break up the United States.”

I also don’t get it. Benedict Arnold was one of the most effective American generals in the Revolutionary War until he switched sides, and did some damage for the Brits (including, interestingly, capturing Richmond, the future Confederate capital). But there isn’t a Fort Benedict Arnold anywhere, or a Benedict Arnold High School. (Yes, there are a few historical markers commemorating his pre-traitorous accomplishments, and a few that generally commemorate his achievements, but simply omit his name, but had he never turned traitor, things would have been very different.) We don’t honor Aldrich Ames or Tokyo Rose, or John Walker, Jr. or any of the Americans who have assisted Al Qaeda or ISIS. And I suspect that many of the supporters of honoring Confederate “heroes” who took up arms against Americans are the same people who still call Jane Fonda a traitor for having expressed support for the North Vietnamese government (but not actually, you know, shooting any Americans).

It’s actually pretty clear to me: Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution states:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. 

And while I wasn’t there, I’m pretty confident that people like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Nathan Bedford Forrest (who likely led a massacre of black troops at Fort Pillow and was an early leader of the Klan), and the officers and men that they commanded were “levying war” against the United States. I don’t buy the arguments made by Southern apologists that secession wasn’t illegal—it was—or that no Confederate was convicted of treason—that was an embarrassing matter of political expediency, not to mention that the 14th Amendment made it clear that anyone engaged in acts of “rebellion” had certain rights taken away.

Much has been written about the Southern “Lost Cause” nostalgia, and all of that is too much to tackle in what is, really, a music blog, so let's talk about music. There are few bands that are as committed to analyzing their Southern identity as the Drive-By Truckers (who I have written about many, many times). In fact, there may not be any other bands that do so to the degree that the Truckers do. They come by it naturally—the founding members, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, are from Alabama, and the band is essentially centered in Athens, Georgia. But Hood has been especially vocal about the fact that his upbringing was not traditional—his father, David Hood, is a legendary Muscle Shoals sideman and producer, who appeared on countless great records with black musicians—and his family was anti-segregation when that was not the popular thing. And Athens, where he ultimately settled as an adult and where he lives, is a liberal bastion in a conservative state.

Southern Rock Opera is considered to be the Truckers’ defining album, and while it may not be my favorite (I like a couple of the later ones with Jason Isbell a little better), it clearly is the one that not only moved the band into the public eye, it crystalized their viewpoint and, for better or worse, set them up as analysts of what Hood, in “The Three Great Alabama Icons,” called “the duality of the Southern Thing.” In an excellent essay for The Bitter Southerner website in 2013, Hood discussed the legacy (and burden) of Southern Rock Opera, and defined the “duality of the Southern thing” as

being from a region that is known for great music and literature and art and something called “Southern hospitality,” but is also known for Jim Crow laws, slavery, racism and the Ku Klux Klan. I talked about being fiercely proud of the good parts of my heritage and mortified and ashamed of the bad parts, the ones that too often define how other people perceive us. 

And that’s what both of these songs are about.

“The Southern Thing,” is a song which Hood wrote to tie the whole project together. It is, stylistically, probably the most “Southern Rock” song on the album, and it describes, with some examples, the duality that he feels as a Southerner who is proud of his identity, even if he doesn’t agree with every—even most—of the stereotypes of that identity. Better you should read the lyrics, than for me to try to summarize them.

The next song on Southern Rock Opera is “Icons," a spoken word essay about Ronnie Van Zant, Bear Bryant and George Wallace, as paradigms of the duality, and points out that there were Southerners who were against segregation and racism, just as there were Northerners who supported it. But the song is mostly about Wallace, who as the song notes was an avid segregationist and racist, yet, at the end of his career, “opened up Alabama politics to minorities at a rate faster than most Northern states or the Federal Government. And Wallace spent the rest of his life trying to explain away his racist past, and in 1982 won his last term in office with over 90% of the black vote.” Despite that, Hood consigns Wallace to hell,

not because he's a racist… His track record as a judge and his late-life quest for redemption make a good argument for his being, at worst, no worse than most white men of his generation, North or South… But because of his blind ambition and his hunger for votes, he turned a blind eye to the suffering of Black America. And he became a pawn in the fight against the Civil Rights cause.

Hood notes in the Bitter Southerner piece that this song is, for the most part, written from the viewpoint of his father. He also mentions that Wallace’s grandson is a big fan of the Truckers.

Interestingly, when they perform the songs live, they switch the order, which makes sense from a performance standpoint—in essence “Icons” acts as an introduction to the more rocking “Southern Thing.” Here’s a video from a 2012 show (recorded and edited by DBT fan extraordinaire “Jonicont”) that shows this—and that Hood goes way off script, to make some topical political points, without losing the underlying message.

Offensive: GG Allin

[purchase a documentary]

Time to really go for it here.

I first heard about GG Allin from the early Drive-By Truckers song “The Night GG Allin Came to Town.” As Patterson Hood tells the story, he and Mike Cooley were living in Memphis in 1991 as their first band, Adam’s House Cat, was disintegrating. They were poor, miserable and hated Memphis. GG Allin played the Antenna Club on November 16, and Hood and Cooley didn’t go—they were broke and weren’t fans. But the next morning, they were at a local restaurant, filled with an older crowd, just after church, and they overheard a couple, described in one version of the story as Thurston Howell III and Lovey, reading an article about the show in the local free paper, and being generally horrified. The lyrics to the song are pretty graphic, but here’s a transcription of the actual article at issue, and it is even better. For example:

To put it bluntly, Allen [sic] grossed out the audience at The Antenna Club. He defecated on the stage, then appeared to eat it and spit at the patrons. Allen, who is the lead singer, also beat his forehead bloody with a beer bottle and put a microphone up his rectum. The drummer performed naked.

My favorite line from the article is, though:

G.G. Allen will not be invited back to the Antenna Club, [club owner] McGehee said, although "people would pay for them to come back. He's got everyone talking.”

An excerpt from this very performance is the video above—it is offensive, but doesn’t include any of the feces-related material. (It also cuts off part way through—but if you aren’t satisfied, just Google him, and you will find many more videos not suitable for, well, pretty much anything.)

Allin was a pretty disgusting character. Literally born Jesus Christ Allin, to a spectacularly delusional and dysfunctional set of parents, Allin probably could have used someone to set a few boundaries. Instead, Allin described his childhood as “very chaotic. Full of chances and dangers. We sold drugs, stole, broke into houses, cars. Did whatever we wanted to for the most part – including all the bands we played in. People even hated us back then."

A drug addict and violent criminal, Allin served time for "assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder" on a female companion, and his psychological evaluation diagnosed him as having a “mixed personality disorder with narcissistic, borderline and masochistic features.” Before accepting a plea bargain, Allin claimed that the conduct at issue was consensual, and admitted to cutting the woman, burning her, and drinking her blood, but argued, in mitigation, that she did the same thing to him. So, that made it O.K.

After getting released from prison in March, 1991, Allin went on tour, which was documented in a film directed by Todd Phillips, who later directed the slightly less offensive, but substantially more successful Hangover movies.

In June, 1993, Allin was playing The Gas Station on the Lower East Side of New York, and something happened during the second song that angered Allin (accounts vary as to what that was, but it probably didn’t take much). Of, course, he trashed the club, then walked out, naked and covered in blood and feces, followed by his fans. He ended up at a friend’s apartment, continued to use drugs and overdosed. Allin died wearing a silver Nazi helmet. Here’s a first hand account of Allin’s last night, written by the legendary Legs McNeil, which differs in many details from the Wikipedia account. McNeil’s version is more fun to read, though, and better written.

Allmusic calls Allin “arguably the most degenerate and outrageous figure in rock history.” And based on my research, it seems like a pretty good argument.

Hotels and Motels: Super 8

[purchase Southeastern]

If you have spoken to me about music over the past year or so, you probably know that my favorite album of 2013 was Jason Isbell’s Southeastern. In fact, it is probably the best album that I have heard in years. And I’m not alone in singing (actually just talking) its praises. It made a ton of year-end best lists, topping some, and has been nominated for all sorts of awards. Although for some reason, WFUV, which you would expect would be all over this disc, never really committed to it. Southeastern’s incredible songwriting, singing and playing, when coupled with Isbell’s story of talent, addiction, leaving a band, marriage and redemption scored Isbell about as much publicity as you can get playing the type of confessional Americana music that he plays. He has been on Letterman (who loves him) and Conan and has been featured on NPR and on the CBS News. But with the music business being what it is, the album has probably sold less in total than some no-talent pre-fab tween pop tart sells in a day.

For the most part, Southeastern is a pretty mellow affair, but its songs’ messages are anything but laid back. There are lots of songs that can be directly or indirectly tied to his life story, and one, “Elephant,” about a woman dying of cancer, that is literally brilliant. Almost every song has imbedded itself into my head, so that I couldn’t tell you what song is my favorite.

The album had just come out last summer, right before my family and I were going to see him perform at the Clearwater festival. I’ve mentioned that performance before, mostly in the context of how great it was that his former colleague in the Drive-By Truckers, Patterson Hood, sat in on one song, and Isbell returned the favor during Hood’s set. Especially since Hood was one of the people who was instrumental in essentially kicking Isbell out of the band when his drinking became too much of a problem. (Clearly, they have buried the hatchet—just the other day, Isbell, Hood and Trucker Mike Cooley performed an entire show together for a benefit.)

Although I had heard the album, it was still new, and hearing Isbell perform the songs, basically solo, was thrilling. Even my wife, who was never the big DBT fan that my son and I are, was blown away. Then, we found out that Isbell, with the full band, was going to be playing at Lincoln Fucking Center, as part of a series of pretty well-respected artists from across the musical spectrum—including jazz, opera and musical theater. I went with my son, his girlfriend and a musician friend of mine who was unfamiliar with Isbell (my wife had a prior commitment). It was an incredible show, in an incredible venue. The entire broadcast from PBS is here, and it is primarily songs from Southeastern, with some older songs and some Truckers classics.

The set ends with “Super 8,” the one real rocker on the album, a Stones-influenced rave about the craziness and danger of life on the road, particularly in cheap motels. In a recent piece in, yes, The Wall Street Journal, debuting the official video for the song, which is above, Isbell was quoted as saying: “This song is one story built out of moments from many different actual nights. Things that are funny now, but weren’t funny at all when they were happening. The song took a couple hours to write, but years to live through.”

 By the way, after “Super 8,” the band encored with an actual Stones song, “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” a part of which you can hear at the end of the video.

And have I mentioned how much I liked Southeastern?

Scrabble Value Letters (Z): Zip City

Drive-By Truckers: Zip City
[purchase Southern Rock Opera]

There is one member of my family who would be disappointed if I had the chance to write about songs that begin with the letter Z and didn’t write about “Zip City,” maybe my son's and my favorite Drive-By Truckers song not written by Jason Isbell.

In the early days of the Truckers, Patterson Hood dominated the songwriting, but Mike Cooley’s smaller output was often more memorable. I once saw a quote from Hood somewhere in which he essentially said that he wrote tons of songs, not all of which were great, and that Cooley wrote fewer songs, and they were all great. I can’t find the damn quote, but I know I saw it. And if you look at the commentary that Hood writes about all of the band’s albums, he invariably refers to a Cooley song as his favorite on the album. Sure, there is a bit of modesty there, but I honestly believe that Hood is sincere.

The new English Oceans, released today, has 13 songs, 7 by Hood and 6 by Cooley—but for the first time, Cooley sings a song written by Hood. Stuff like this is just manna for fans. I could have streamed the new album, but I’m waiting for my CD to arrive (hopefully in today's mail) before listening to it. I’ve liked what I have heard, so far.

But back to “Zip City,” from the Truckers’ breakthrough album, Southern Rock Opera. This was the album where a band that wrote songs like “The President’s Penis is Missing,” matured into one of the great American rock bands. Using a slightly fictionalized version of the Lynyrd Skynyrd story as a jumping off point to discuss perceived misconceptions of the South, modern southern mythology and the power of rock ‘n’ roll, it is an album that grows on me every time I listen to it.

“Zip City” is probably the Cooley song that fans most want to hear, and I think the band plays it at most every show (the version I posted is from a 2010 show at Webster Hall in New York that I was lucky enough to attend). And it is great live. Despite that, being somewhat of a contrarian (polite for “smartass”), the song is omitted from Cooley’s live solo album, The Fool on Every Corner,” which was released in late 2012. And it wasn’t like he didn’t play “Zip City” during the live performances that were used to create the album. Here’s proof. He just chose to leave it off.

What makes “Zip City” such a great song? Start with the story—although at the base, it is a classic tale of teenage lust, there is a twist. The seventeen year old narrator displays incredible maturity—he knows that he is never going to marry the girl, and he resignedly tells her to keep her drawers on, because it just isn’t worth the fight. And add to that the overlay of the narrator’s recognition of the hypocrisy of his girlfriend’s father, a church deacon, and the subtle references to the aimlessness and boredom of the narrator’s life. But then there are the lyrics, which are typically brilliant. For example, after telling his girlfriend that she should keep her drawers on, the singer predicts the dead end life his girlfriend faces:

By the time you drop them I'll be gone 
And you'll be right where they fall the rest of your life. 

The bleakness doesn’t stop there—Cooley describes her family like this:

Your Daddy is a deacon down at the Salem Church of Christ 
And he makes good money as long as Reynolds Wrap keeps everything wrapped up tight 
Your Mama's as good a wife and Mama as she can be 
And your sister's puttin' that sweet stuff on everybody in town but me 
Your brother was the first-born, got ten fingers and ten toes 
And it's a damn good thing cause he needs all twenty to keep the closet door closed 

I particularly like his description of the closeted brother.

There’s more, but better you should listen to the song, which, according to Hood is “90% true and is my personal favorite song on the album.”

And, if you want to learn more about the actual locations in the song, and see pictures, check out this blog.

On The Air: 18 Wheels of Love

Drive-By Truckers: 18 Wheels of Love
[purchase]

I used to be a member of one of those record clubs where you got a bunch of records for a penny, then had to buy a bunch more at full price, and it still ended up as a good deal if you knew how to play the game. I once ordered a CD from the club, and as a bonus, got a copy of Decoration Day by the Drive-By Truckers, a band I had never heard of. I have no recollection of what I bought, but Decoration Day became, and still is, one of my favorite CDs, and the Truckers became one of my favorite bands. I started to fill in their back catalog, including their debut, Gangstabilly. At the time, I liked it, but didn’t think it measured up to more mature efforts like Decoration Day, Southern Rock Opera or The Dirty South. But there are good songs on there, and they have grown in my estimation over time.

“18 Wheels of Love” is a fine song, telling the story of Patterson Hood’s mother’s romance with a massive trucker, Chester, who drove for the company she worked at, but I can’t really say it is a great song. However, when they played it live, Hood told the whole background story, and a version with the full story was released on Alabama Ass-Whuppin', a live album that came out in 1999. One of the things that can elevate a live performance over a studio version is when the band tells you about the song or comments on it. I think of some of the great Springsteen monologues as an example. Patterson Hood is similarly a master storyteller. Hood’s father is David Hood, a studio musician who played on many great Muscle Shoals recordings, and many other great songs. You can look them up. Patterson’s parents divorced, and as he tells the story, his mother did not handle it well, taking to her room. Ultimately, she got a job as an auditor at a trucking company, and one of the drivers kept messing up his logs so that he could spend time with her. They fell in love and got married. This song was her son’s wedding present.

I have purposely not told this story well to encourage you to listen to the way Patterson Hood tells it—he does it so much better than I ever could. However, the version I have posted is not the Alabama Ass-Whuppin’ version, but one that was recorded during a September 2008 taping of Austin City Limits, the great PBS music series. Here, not only does Hood tell the usual story, but he adds “the rest of the story.” In this version, Hood tells about getting a call from his sister, informing him that Chester was dying. But Chester recovered to drive his truck again. Honestly, it gives me chills every time I hear it. You can hear in the way he tells the story the love that Hood has for his stepfather and mother and his joy that Chester cheated death.

Unfortunately, and as probably was expected considering Chester’s health issues, the recovery was short-lived. Chester Adams died in May, 2010. Announcing the death to the Drive-By Truckers fans who knew the story, Hood wrote: “Chester was a cool guy and truly a force of nature that will be forever missed in our family.”

Retrospective: Burning Hell

R.E.M.: Burning Hell

[purchase]

Patterson Hood: Burning Hell

[purchase]

Although I visited Star Maker Machine from day one... my first post here didn't come until July 9th of 2008.

I was a little scared when I was told that my first week was something called "Hell Week." I had a brief flashback to my college days and wondered what sort of horrors would be foisted upon the newbie in his first week on the team. Then it was explained to me that "Hell Week" was merely the theme for the music that week and not some hazing ritual designed to make me "worthy." I felt a lot better.

That week, I chose to submit the song "Burning Hell" from the R.E.M. b-sides compilation Dead Letter Office. That post was the first thing I ever wrote for a blog (although I think it was actually posted after my first post at my site). I had no idea what I was doing, so I just followed the templates provided for me. I couldn't believe how simple it was.

That post gave me the courage I needed to finally get up off my butt and start my own site. I don't know that I ever would have started A Fifty Cent Lighter & A Whiskey Buzz if it wasn't for Star Maker Machine. That's why my initial post here was also my favorite moment*.

Today, I'm re-sharing that original R.E.M. song along with a cover by Patterson Hood from an R.E.M. tribute album.

*A close second to my favorite moment was this post by bowhowdy. That was the moment that really let me know that I might actually be doing something right with this whole blogging thing. The fact that another contributer here had such nice things to say really stopped me in my tracks. To boyhowdy, I want to say thank you again.