Drive-by Truckers with support from Early James

Boasting a mix of Southern pride, erudite lyrics, and a muscled, guitar-heavy attack, Drive-By Truckers are one of the most well-respected alternative country-rock acts around today. Featuring a rotating cast of Georgia and Alabama natives, the Drive-By Truckers celebrate the South while refusing to paint over its sometimes shameful past. History, folklore, politics, and character studies all share equal space in the Truckers catalog, Their first blast of gutsy, twangy rock was 1998’s Gangstabilly. It was the band’s ambitious double-disc concept album, 2001’s Southern Rock Opera, that became their unlikely magnum opus and breakthrough release, exploring the bands fascination with ’70s Southern rock while tackling the cultural contradictions of the region, and it helped lay the groundwork for much of the band’s later work.  2003’s Decoration Day, 2004’s The Dirty South, and 2008’s Brighter Than Creation’s Dark found the band’s deep-focus songwriting and smart but hard-hitting rock growing stronger than ever. 2016’s American Band pushed their progressive political views front and center, and they doubled-down on their social and political commentary on their first two albums in the 2020s, The Unraveling and The New OK.

In 2023, the DBT’s teamed with New West Records for an archival project, The Complete Dirty South. The band had originally planned for the 2004 album to be a two-disc, but New West persuaded the band to edit it down to fit on a single CD. The Complete Dirty South restored the album to its original length and intended sequence with the addition of three outtakes, “TVA,” “The Great Car Dealer War,” and “Goode’s Field Road” (the latter was rerecorded for Brighter Than Creation’s Dark). Patterson Hood also recorded new vocals for two songs (he also revised the lyrics), and the vinyl edition included new liner notes, commentary on the songs, and revised artwork from the late Wes Freed.

Support by Early James

“Early James is a Rootsy Throwback in an Uncertain Present”
-NY Times

https://www.earlyjames.com/