Blackfoot – Dry Country + Too Hard To Handle + 2 (1981)

Blackfoot is an American Southern rock band from Jacksonville, Florida formed during 1969. Though they primarily play with a Southern rock style, they are also known as a hard rock act. The band’s classic lineup consisted of guitarist and vocalist Rickey Medlocke, guitarist Charlie Hargrett, bassist Greg T. Walker, and drummer Jakson Spires.

They had a number of successful albums during the 1970s and early 1980s, including Strikes (1979), Tomcattin’ (1980) and Marauder (1981).

By late 1975, the group was living back in Gainesville, Florida. During 1977 they communicated with Black Oak Arkansas’ manager, Butch Stone, who hired them as the backing group for one of his clients, Ruby Starr, who had been a backup singer for Black Oak but was now becoming self-employed. After the stint with Ruby ended during 1978, they met Brownsville Station manager Al Nalli and his partner Jay Frey, who got them a contract with the company Atco Records.

Blackfoot Strikes, produced by Al Nalli and engineered by Brownsville Station drummer Henry Weck, was recorded in Nalli’s basement studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and was completed by January 1979. It was destined to be the band’s most commercially successful effort. The song “Train, Train”, written by Rickey’s grandfather, “Shorty” Medlocke, became their first success and best known song. “Highway Song” proved to be another success for them later that year.

The group toured frequently during 1979; late during the year they opened for the band The Who at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan while developing their next album, Tomcattin, which was released during 1980. They went on to release the album Marauder during 1981 and Highway Song Live during 1982. (by wikipedia)

And here´s a rare single including as a bonus a “free live single”, recorded at the Castle Donnington Festival, including their legendary “Train Train” written by Shorty Medlocke (the grandpa auf Ricky Melock).

The two sutio tracks were taken from their “Marauder” album.

Enjoy the power of one of the finest Southern Hard Rock groups ever … !

Personnel:
Charlie Hargrett (guitar)
Rickey Medlocke (vocals, guitar)
Greg T. Walker (bass, background vocals)
Jakson Spires (drums, background vocals)

Tracklist:
01. Dry Country (R.Medlocke/Spires) 3.42
02. Too Hard To Handel (R.Medlocke/Spires) 4.04
03. On The Run (live Donington 1981) (R.Medlocke/Spires) 4.37
04. Train Train (live Donington 1981) (S.Medlocke) 7.01

*
**

Jakson Spires April 12th 1951 – March 16th 2005

Marshall Tucker Band – Carolina Dreams (1977)

Carolina Dreams, released in 1977, was The Marshall Tucker Band’s sixth album and an ode to the band’s home state, South Carolina, USA. Focusing on Western themes, it spawned their biggest hit to date, “Heard It In a Love Song”, which rose to #14 on the Billboard Hot 100, taking the album with it to #22 and #23 on the Country and Pop charts, respectively. They toured early that year to promote the album. A bonus live version of “Silverado” appears on the 2005 reissue which was recorded the year after the death of bassist and founding member, Tommy Caldwell. (by wikipedia)

The Carolina landscape seems to lend itself to dreaming; it’s no wonder that James Taylor wrote in one of his most famous songs that “I’m goin’ to Carolina in my mind.” This two-state region, with its rich and fertile soil, its mild year-round climate, its courteous people and rich culture, is a singularly lovely place in which to sit back and dream. For that reason, it seems appropriate that the Marshall Tucker Band gave their fine 1977 album the evocative title of “Carolina Dreams.”

The Marshall Tucker Band came out of Spartanburg, South Carolina – a center (with nearby Greenville) of the Upstate region, and a city with a mill-town heritage that, by 1977, was already in decline. Spartanburg and its environs are worlds away from the coastal gentility of Charleston; Pat Conroy, in one of his books, described “the upcountry of South Carolina” as a place that combines “the Bible Belt, sand-lot baseball, knife fights under the bleachers.”

But it was also a place where the musical heritage of the American South – including both African-American blues and Anglo-Appalachian country music – had long helped the people of the region through lives of hard work and hard times; and the Marshall Tucker Band’s work on this album is steeped in a sensibility that combines blues and country in a musically fruitful manner.

The album begins with “Fly Like an Eagle” — *not* the Steve Miller Band hit from 1976, but rather, for my money, a much better song. It is a crunchy, bluesy, riff-based rocker with high clear vocals from Doug Gray, and a soaring quality that characterizes many of the songs on this album. The song that follows, “Heard It in a Love Song,” was deservedly a big hit (#14 here in the U.S.A., #5 in Canada), and to this day it makes its way onto just about every Southern rock compilation that one can find. What gives this song that lyrical quality that sent it racing up the North American charts? To my way of thinking, it’s Jerry Eubanks’s flute solo. With a few exceptions (Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues, Peter Gabriel in Genesis’ early years), the flute has not had much of a presence in rock music; but here, Eubanks’s flute combines seamlessly with flat-picking, Carl Perkins-style guitar, a lovely piano solo, and effective use of organ in a supporting role. The lyrics are fairly typical – a rambling, roaming rocker really loves the girl he’s with, but tells her he needs to move on – but musically, the song is so well-composed and so well-played that I’m not disposed to quibble.

“I Should Have Never Started Lovin’ You” is slow-paced and bluesy; it unfolds slowly, gently, with effective use of the saxophone. The Toy Caldwell guitar solo in the middle is fairly long, but it complements the song well; in contrast with a lot of songs from the 1970’s heyday of Southern rock, the guitar solo doesn’t overwhelm the song. “Life in a Song” is funky and fast-paced; a kinetic guitar plays the dominant role here, while Hammond organ and a Muscle Shoals-style brass section provide fine support. “Desert Skies,” another slow and bluesy number, achieves something different by deploying guest star Charlie Daniels’s fiddle to establish a wistful, country-and-Western quality, in a manner that looks back to the earlier MTB album “Searchin’ for a Rainbow” (1975).

“Never Trust a Stranger,” with lap steel guitar and walking bass backing up a chunka-chunka guitar sound, keeps that Western sound going, as further emphasized by the song’s “outlaw” lyrics; but this song, with its minor-key delivery, has more of a foreboding quality, and once again Eubanks’s flute playing shines. The country influence is comparably important on the slow-paced, mellow “Tell It to the Devil”; but what stands out on this song is the piano, which switches back and forth seamlessly between barrel-house and gospel sounds. The harmonies, as throughout this album, are strong, and flute and acoustic guitar develop some lead melodies together very nicely. And, as a CD extra, this album offers a live version of “Silverado,” recorded in 1981 at the Winter Garden Theater in Dallas; it’s a fast-paced, riff-based number, heavy on the snare drum, with strong Hammond organ fills; if the guitar solo seems somewhat disorganized, hey, that’s live rock-and-roll!

Today, Spartanburg is probably best known for three things. It is home to a large BMW factory; its Wofford College is the training-camp home of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers (whose panther-head logo cleverly incorporates an outline of the states of North and South Carolina); and it gave the Marshall Tucker Band to the world. The “Carolina Dreams” album, the only MTB studio album to go platinum, shows this classic Southern rock band at their best. (Paul Haspel)

Personnel:
Tommy Caldwell (bass, background vocals)
Toy Caldwell (lead guitar, steel guitar)
Doug Gray (vocals)
Jerry Eubanks (flute, saxophone, background vocals)
George McCorkle (guitar)
Paul Riddle (drums)
+
Charlie Daniels (fiddle, background vocals on 05.)
Paul Hornsby (keyboards)
Jaimoe (percussion)
Chuck Leavell (piano on 04.)

Leo LaBranche – Horn section arrangements and trumpet on “Life In A Song” and “I Should Have Never Started Lovin’ You”
Dezso Lakatos – Tenor sax as part of the horn section.

Tracklist:
01. Fly Like an Eagle (Toy Caldwell) 3.05
02. Heard It in a Love Song (Toy Caldwell) – 4:55
03. I Should Have Never Started Lovin’ You (Toy Caldwell/Gray/McCorkle) 6.50
04. Life In A Song (Eubanks/McCorkle) 3.23
05. Desert Skies (Toy Caldwell) 6.23
06. Never Trust A Stranger” (Tommy Caldwell) 5.14
07. Tell It To The Devil (Toy Caldwell) 6.27

*
**

Still on the road:

 

The Derek Trucks Band – Live At Georgia Theatre (2004)

Live at Georgia Theatre is the fifth album and first live album by American artist Derek Trucks and The Derek Trucks Band released in 2004.

This album is one of 10 “Live jam releases of this century” according to the August issue of Guitar One magazine. (by wikipedia)

Derek Trucks is a world-class slide guitarist, still only 24 at the time of this recording. Most know him as a guitarist with the Allman Brothers Band. But here, with a smoking group of collaborators, he plays an incendiary, soulful, and wildly adventurous set that challenges all the accepted rock paradigms. This is the record to turn the heads of those who haven’t gotten hip to Trucks’ bottleneck magic. This performance is so inspired, so utterly spellbinding, it transcends the genre classifications it employs to get the music across. This is a musical first to boot: this show marks the first time the quintet recorded together. Kofi Burbridge (B-3, keys, and flute) and vocalist Mike Mattison join Trucks, drummer Yonrico Scott, and bassist Todd Smallie. Master percussionist Count M’Butu from Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit is also on board for the gig. The band showcases only four tunes from its catalog and all of these come from Joyful Noise, its last album. The rest is a rolling plethora of jazz, funk, soul, Eastern Sufi jams, and blues tunes by Rahsaan Roland Kirk (“Volunteered Slavery”), Wayne Shorter (“Angola”), Lightnin’ Hopkins (“Feel So Bad”), Paul Pena (“Gonna Move”), Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (“Sahib Teri Bandi”), and Curtis Mayfield (“Freddie’s Dead”), among others.

The jamming is tight and full of surprises, and there is no aimless guitar wankery. This is a band that plays like a single, flowing unit, where nuance, dynamic, and intuition are the order of the evening and the modus operandi for encountering and relaying this information to an audience. Trucks is its centerpiece, of course, but he understands the value and necessity of ensemble play. While there are no dogs on this two-hour smorgasbord, the standouts are the soulful rendition of “Gonna Move,” the awesome medley of Khan’s tunes “Sahib Teri Bandi” and “Maki Madni,” the guttersnipe funk of “For My Brother,” and “So Close, So Far Away.” Unfortunately, Live at Georgia Theatre seems to be one of those albums created for fans only. It has nothing to do with the music or musicians, and everything to do with marketing by the conglomerates. You can download it digitally, and you can order it in its physical form from the band’s website, but you can’t buy it in stores. What nonsense. The labels still don’t understand how to use the Internet’s potential. After all, wasn’t it At Fillmore East, the Allman Brothers’ third album, that put them into the mass consciousness and took them over the top? This is the right time for the Derek Trucks Band to issue a concert recording. The truth remains, however, that any way you cut it, this is a live album for the ages — it’s too bad only people with credit cards get to hear it. (by Thom Jurek)

Personnel:
Kofi Burbridge (keyboards, flute, vocals)
Mike Mattison (vocals)
Count M’Butu (percussion)
Yonrico Scott (drums, percussion, vocals)
Todd Smallie (bass, vocals)
Derek Trucks (guitar)

Tracklist:

CD 1:
01. Kam-Ma-Lay” (Trucks) 8.53
02. Gonna Move (Pena) 6.29
03. Volunteered Slavery (Kirk) 4.36
04. Sahib Teri Bandi/Maki Madni (Khan) 15.21
05. Leaving Trunk (Estes) 4.58
06. I Wish I Knew (Taylor/Dallas) 5.29
07. Angola (Shorter) 10.12
08. Feel So Bad (Willis) 7.41

CD 2:
01. For My Brother (Trucks) 13.28
02. Sonido Alegre (Victoriano Ramirez) 15.14
03. Joyful Noise (Trucks) 11.58
04. So Close, So Far Away (Burbridge) 5.53
05. Freddie’s Dead (Mayfield) 10.20

*
**

Blackberry Smoke – The Whippoorwill (2012)

The Whippoorwill is the third studio album by American southern/country rock band Blackberry Smoke. It was released on August 14, 2012 through Southern Ground Records in the North America and on February 17, 2014 through Earache Records in Europe. The latter contained three additional live tracks; “Country Side of Life”, “Pretty Little Lie” and “Six Ways to Sunday”. (by wikipedia)

Atlanta, Georgia’s Blackberry Smoke does upward of 250 shows a year, relentlessly crossing and re-crossing the various club, bar, and festival circuits, and the group’s classic Southern rock sound, which recalls bands like the Black Crowes and Lynyrd Skynyrd, has been honed to a sharp edge by the constant playing. This is a solid band with a good rhythm section in bassist Richard Turner and drummer Brit Turner, a stand-out keyboardist in Brandon Still, and plenty of electric guitar work from Paul Jackson and lead singer Charlie Starr. Starr’s voice is really what makes Blackberry Smoke more than a Southern rock nostalgia act, though. He’s a country singer with a rock attitude and heart, and when the song’s good, and the band’s on board, this is a top-tier group who merge country and rock so seamlessly that it’s both at once.

There are several very good songs on The Whippoorwill, the band’s debut for Zac Brown’s Southern Ground label, including the chugging “Six Ways to Sunday,” which opens the set, the tell-it-straight-like-it-is small town anti-anthem “One Horse Town” (which sounds like Steve Earle in his heyday), and the cranky, defiant, and determined “Leave a Scar,” any of which deserve to be in regular rotation on contemporary country stations, but probably won’t be because they sound more like Muscle Shoals productions than they do Nashville. Think Steve Earle fronting Lynyrd Skynyrd. Great stuff, ragged and real, and yes, there are a lot of cliché stances and phrases woven into these songs, but Starr’s voice and this band’s loose yet crisp playing style pulls it all off more often than not. (by Steve Leggett)

The second coming of Lynyrd Skynyrd… with some Black Crows, Allman Brothers and ZZ Top tossed in for good measure. An amazing album with no filler songs. I can listen to this from start to finish again and again. (Tim Pickering)

Personnel:
Paul Jackson (guitar, vocals)
Charlie Starr (vocals, guitar, pedal steel-guitar banjo)
Brandon Still (keyboards)
Brit Turner (drums, percussion)
Richard Turner (bass, vocals)
+
Clay Cook (percussion, harmonium on 04)
Matt Mangano (guitar on 04)
+
background vocals:
Maureen Murphy – Lo Carter – Kyla Jade (on 03.,09.,12.,13.)
Sarah Dugas (on 09.)
Arnold McCuller (on 06.,10.,13.)

Tracklist:
01. Six Ways To Sunday (Starr) 3.27
02. Pretty Little Lie (Meadows/Starr) 3.35
03. Everybody Knows She’s Mine (Starr) 3.50
04. One Horse Town (Meadows/Spillman/Starr) 4.16
05. Ain’t Much Left Of Me (Murphy/Jackson/Starr/Still/B.Turner/R.Turner) 4.59
06. The Whippoorwill (Starr) 5.32
07. Lucky Seven (Meadows/Jackson/Starr/Still/B.Turner/R.Turner) 4.17
08. Crimson Moon (Brown/Mangano/Starr) 4.01
10. Ain’t Got The Blues (Starr) 4.04
11. Sleeping Dogs (Kennedy/ackson/Starr/Still/B.Turner/R.Turner) 3.22
12. Shakin’ Hands With The Holy Ghost (Starr) 3.46
13. Up The Road (Starr) 5.53

*
**

 

Thanks a lot to the greygoose, a woman with a real great taste for good music !

Drive-By Truckers – The Dirty South (2004)

The Dirty South is the fifth album by Alabamian alternative country/Southern rock group Drive-By Truckers, released in 2004. The Dirty South is Drive-By Truckers’ second concept album. Like its predecessor, Southern Rock Opera, the album 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.”

Isbell’s “The Day John Henry Died,” retells the story of John Henry.

“Puttin’ 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 NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Mike Cooley’s “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac” recounts the celebrated Sun Records, Sam Phillips, 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. Questioning the veracity of the movie, his uncle answers he never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima.

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 Danko, Richard Manuel, and The Band’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. Isbell stated that the horn parts for the song came to him in a dream.

“The Dirty South” contains a three song suite (“The Boys From Alabama,” “Cottonseed” and “The Buford Stick”) about Sheriff Buford Pusser. “The Boys From Alabama” was inspired by the misconceptions and “really bad movies” of the Redneck Mafia and recounts the movie “Walking Tall”‘ 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, prostitution and alcohol 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. “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 has explained that “Never Gonna Change” is simply about a stubborn North Alabama man who “refuses to live in fear,” which Isbell goes on to explain are rather rare.

“Lookout Mountain” was written around 1990 by Hood, and can be heard in its 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 Field Road” was eventually rerecorded for 2008’s Brighter Than Creation’s Dark, 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 Rarities. The version as it appears on The Dirty South was recorded in one take.

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. (by wikipedia)

When you’ve named your band the Drive-By Truckers and your first three albums are called Pizza Deliverance, Gangstabilly, and Alabama Ass 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.

While much of America might be laughing at “You might be a redneck…” jokes, the Drive-By Truckers aren’t about to let anyone forget the harsh truth behind growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in this country, and the tough, muscular force of their music only sharpens the bite of their stories. They can also turn down the amps and still hit you in the heart, especially on “Danko/Manuel” and “Daddy’s Cup,” and David Barbe’s production gives this band the full-bodied clarity they’ve always deserved. Believe it — the Drive-By Truckers are the best, smartest, and most soulful hard rock band to emerge in a very long time, and while The Dirty South isn’t always good for laughs, it has too many great stories and too much fierce, passionate rock & roll for anyone who cares about such things to dare pass it up. (by Mark Deming)

Personnel:
Mike Cooley (vocals, guitar, banjo on 06. + 08., harmonica on 06.)
Patterson Hood (vocals, guitar, piano on 02 – 14.)
Jason Isbell (vocals, (guitar, piano on 02., 07. + 08. organ on 14., mellotron on 07.)
Brad Morgan (drums, percussion)
Shonna Tucker (bass, background  vocals)
+
David Barbe (piano on 04., 06., organ on 08, background vocals on 13.)
Clay Leverett (background vocals on 02.)
+
The Minor Hill Singers (background  vocals on 01.):
Jason Isbell – Kimberly Morgan – Shonna Tucker
+
The State Line Chain Gang (percussion 08.)

Tracklist:
01. Where The Devil Don’t Stay (Cooley) 5.18
02. Tornadoes (Hood) 4.13
03. The Day John Henry Died (Isbell) 3.46
04. “Puttin’ People on the Moon” Patterson Hood 4:55
05. Carl Perkins’ Cadillac (Cooley) 5.24
06. The Sands Of Iwo Jima (Hood) 4.10
07. Danko/Manuel (Isbell) 5.43
08. The Boys From Alabama (Hood) 4.24
09. Cottonseed (Cooley) 6.20
10. The Buford Stick (Hood) 4.40
11. Daddy’s Cup (Cooley) 5.53
12. Never Gonna Change (Isbell) 5.23
13. Lookout Mountain (Hood) 5.00
14. Goddamn Lonely Love (Isbell) 4.55

*
**

 

Drive By Truckers – Gangstabilly (1998)

The Drive-By Truckers are an alternative country/Southern rock band based in Athens, Georgia, though two of five current members (Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley) are originally from The Shoals region of northern Alabama, and the band strongly identifies with Alabama. The group also has roots in Richmond, Virginia. The Secret To A Happy Ending [DVD]. ATO Records. The band currently consists of Mike Cooley (lead vocals, guitar, banjo), Patterson Hood (lead vocals, guitar), Brad Morgan (drums), Jay Gonzalez (keys, guitar, accordion, backing vocals), and Matt Patton (bass guitar, backing vocals). Like many alternative country acts, the Drive-By Truckers record in analog (using 2 inch, 16-track open-reel tape recorders). The band’s constant touring has developed its dedicated following.

The band’s original lineup was fluid, but it most often included Hood, Cooley, and Howell, along with drummer Matt Lane, pedal steel player John Neff, and mandolin player Barry Sell. They released their first album Gangstabilly in 1998. With Hood and Cooley sometimes playing mandolin and banjo instead of guitar, and Howell playing double bass, the band’s original sound had a strong alternative country aspect, albeit with some rock mixed in, as well. (by wikipedia)

The Drive-By Truckers don’t need an agenda to be a good band. Sure, Southern Rock Opera more or less anointed the Truckers as a smarter, more attentive Lynyrd Skynyrd, and critics, in turn, made them famous for all the wrong reasons. And while critics tossed around adjectives like “brash” and “raunchy” and dug out their riffs on Southern rock revival and the renovation of country, Gangstabilly, DBT’s debut, went largely overlooked. No mock-rock operas or anxious, insistent Southernism here — Gangstabilly keeps its charm by keeping it simple. Whereas post-Pizza Deliverance DBT tended to veer into weathered tailgate-party twang, Gangstabilly is a swamp of mushy drums, scraggly acoustics, and pedal-steel whimper — a catalog of trashy but telling details and broader yet personal pangs. NASCAR, monster-truck rallies, and countless episodes of COPS and America Undercover have melted the South down into a handful of stereotypes. But if frontman Patterson Hood has shown anything, all you have to do to cut through the velvet Elvis/TV rodeo/Haffenreffer muck of white-trash clichés is simply treat them seriously. While DBT retain a campy sensibility to distance themselves from their songs, the Truckers’ South doesn’t come without its share of loss and hardship.

Take “Wifebeater,” the album’s opener. The title explains it all, but the subject matter is accepted as part of life, rendered like a conventional love song — “Don’t go back to him, he’s a wife beater.” The drums lurch, the pedal steel rises like steam, the harmonies go bullfrog-croak low, and Hood puts you inside a would-be dismissed act of domestic violence. Then, there’s “Panties in Your Purse” — a title which tells a whole newly painful story of a night of drinkin’ and cheatin’ in and of itself. But perhaps more than any song in their back catalog, “The Living Bubba” perfects the Truckers’ combination of tough but hurt. Dedicated to the late Atlanta guitarist Gregory Dean Smalley, “The Living Bubba” comes through with an introverted, slowly ascending verse and a chorus you can flick a Bic to. Bottom line: do yourself a favor and don’t ignore this album. The sad songs are sad the way you want them to be, the ballsier songs tempered with a little mellow manly pain. After Gangstabilly, the Drive-By Truckers would provide good albums, sure, but they’d be of the Napster-good sort, the buy-it-used sort. But for a brief moment, the Drive-By Truckers created something whose praise wouldn’t come by default, that wouldn’t play immediately into critics’ expectations. Gangstabilly was a thankless job, but a good one. (by Bill Peters)

Personnel:
Mike Cooley (guitar, vocals, mandolin)
Adam Howell (bass, vocals)
Matt Lane (drums)
Patterson Hood (guitar, vocals, banjo)
John Neff (steel-guitar, vocals)
+
Redneck Greece (background vocals on 08.)
Barry Sell (mandolin, background vocals on 05.)
Jim Stacy (harmonica on 09. + 10.)

Tracklist:
01. Wife Beater 3.32
02. Demonic Possession 4.52
03. The Tough Sell 3.41
04. The Living Bubba 5.56
05. Late For Church 5.27
06. Panties In Your Purse 4.41
07. Why Henry Drinks 4.13
08. 18 Wheels Of Love 4.10
09. Steve McQueen 5.13
10.  Buttholeville 5.25
11. Sandwiches For The Road 6.40

Music: Mike Cooley – Adam Howell – Matt Lane – Patterson Hood – John Neff
Lyrics:
Mike Cooley (on 06.)
Adam Howell (on 05.)
Patterson Hood (01. – 04., 07.  11.)

*
**

Sea Level – Park West (1978)

Sea Level was an American jazz fusion band from Macon, Georgia that mixed jazz, blues and rock and existed between 1976 and 1981. Initially it was an offshoot of The Allman Brothers Band, but as tensions grew between the loss of two of its founding members and personal grievances between Gregg Allman and other bandmates and associates, Sea Level took on a life of its own as an independent band.

After the initial breakup of the Allman Brothers Band when Gregg Allman and Dicky Betts left, most of the remaining members who evolved into Sea Level were the trio “We Three” comprising bassist Lamar Williams, drummer Jaimoe and Chuck Leavell (piano, keyboards, vocals). The trio would occasionally open shows for the group in 1975 and 1976. With the Allmans disbanding in 1976, the trio added guitarist Jimmy Nalls and named the band based on a phonetic pun of their new bandleader Chuck Leavell’s name: “C. Leavell.” They toured relentlessly, experimenting and refining their sound, eventually signing with Capricorn Records (home of the Allman Brothers) and recording their self-titled debut album in 1977.

After the release of their first album, the group expanded to a septet with the additions of Davis Causey (guitar), George Weaver (drums, percussion) and Randall Bramblett (saxophones, keyboards and vocals). That configuration recorded the group’s second album, Cats on the Coast, in 1978 (with the leadoff track, “That’s Your Secret”,[1] reaching #50 on the Billboard Hot 100). By the time of the third album, On the Edge, Jaimoe and Weaver had both left, replaced by Joe English. The sextet of Bramblett, Causey, English, Leavell, Nalls and Williams recorded the fourth album, Long Walk on a Short Pier (1979), unreleased in the United States for nearly twenty years, adding percussionist Matt Greeley for their fifth and final album, Ball Room, issued on Arista in 1980. Their greatest hits album (CD) wrapped up their body of work, minus a handful of appearances on various compilation albums (mostly Southern Rock). They were also featured on a 1978 live Southern Rock album which included a live version of “Grand Larceny.”

Leavell later emerged as a much sought-after session musician and producer, touring with Eric Clapton and eventually becoming a “permanent” session player touring with the Rolling Stones.

In 1998, he issued his debut solo LP, a Christmas album called What’s in That Bag? and more recently Forever Blue that includes solo versions of two classic Sea Level compositions: “Whole Lotta Colada” and “Song for Amy.” He also released Southscape, an album of Southern anthems that hearkens back to his Southern roots. (by wikipedia)

Andhere´s a superb braodcast recording from the early days of Sea Level … such a gret mixture between Southern Rock and Jazz … another highlight in the history of this criminally underrated band !

Recorded live at the Park West, Chicago, November 18, 1978
excellent broadcast recording

Alternate frontcover

Personnel:
Randall Bramblett (saxophone, keyboards, vocals)
Davis Causey (guitar)
Joe English (drums)
Chuck Leavell (keyboards, vocals)
Jimmy Nalls (guitar, vocals)
Lamar Williams (bass, vocals)

Tracklist:
01. Rain In Spain (Leavell) 6.20
02. Living In A Dream (Bramlett/Causey/Pearson) 5.24
03. A Lotta Colada (Leavell) 3.59
04. That’s Your Secret (Bramblett/Causey) 5.35
05. King Grand (Bramblett/Causey) 5.26
06. Sneakers (Nalls) 4.49
07. Shake A Leg (Hoerner) 4.01
08. Grand Larceny (Larsen) 10.52
09. Statesboro Blues (McTell) 5.19

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More Sea Level:

Lamar Williams died from lung cancer in 1983.

Jimmy Nalls, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, died on June 22, 2017.