Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera (2001)

[Album 739/1001]

I don’t always read about an album before listening.

But when I do, I’m generally glad that I did.

Perhaps never more so than when I read a bit about Southern Rock Opera before exploring it this month.

Otherwise, I would have been somewhat flummoxed as to why seemingly every song was about Lynyrd Skynyrd!

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As an accounting teacher, it was also interesting to read about how the band financed this recording.

Long before the days of Kickstarter or GoFundMe, Drive By Truckers (DBT) had a creative solution to fundraising.

The band offered Promissory Notes to investors: if you loaned the band $, they’d pay you back with 15% interest.

So thank you DBT for a future Notes Payable lesson plan!

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But even more exciting than the accounting involved in the making of the record?

The music itself.

One of the singers (the vocalist on the terrific track two, Ronnie and Neil) reminds me of Cracker’s David Lowery & another vocalist has some Jon Bon Jovi similarities, both very favourable reference points in my books.

The Three Great Alabama Icons is one of the better storytelling tracks I’ve heard and I find there’s a different album track that I appreciate more with each re-listen.

Overall, I find that my most reliable metric for assessing an album is in seeing how quickly I’m motivated to listen to an album again; with Southern Rock Opera, I’ve had this playing on repeat for the past week.

I like the accounting, I admire the double LP / concept-album ambition, and most importantly, I’ve just really been enjoying it!

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Verbalize the Positive

An early contender for this year’s top new-to-me album from the 1001 list!