Here’s our final dip into the Drive-By Truckers. I had to have this the minute I saw it. A 4 LP boxed set of coloured vinyl records, 2 of  translucent red and 2 of translucent blue (I have explained my addiction to coloured vinyl, right ?), containing a complete recording of the Drive-By Truckers Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley being joined for part of the show by ex Trucker Jason Isbell at the Shoals Theatre in Florence, AL on 15/6/14 and playing an acoustic “best of” set. The show was a benefit for local journalist Terry Pace who was suffering from some (in America) expensive health difficulties following a stroke (remember to treasure our NHS kids !).

The one thing that sticks out to me from this recording is that when Jason Isbell sings his songs (and he even does one of his solo songs “Cover Me Up”) he’s playing and singing his guts out, almost like he’s saying “see where I managed to go, see what you’re missing guys”. I’m certain that’s not what is happening but that’s what it feels like. I’ve linked to two versions of Jason Isbell’s other great song from “Decoration Day” below, “Outfit”, one from this album and the other shot from the audience that very night. Does it bug the rest of the band they really can’t play this live anymore (in Trucker-world if you wrote it, you sing it) ? but Isbell can. It’s a superb song.

“Live At The Shoals Theatre” is a thing of beauty and a glorious balm to my ears.

Outfit - https://youtu.be/65XaIsKZ4iM

Outfit - https://youtu.be/KCd14ngsw2g (shot from the audience l-r Jason Isbell, Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley)

Jason Isbell departed the Drive-By Truckers following “A Blessing And A Curse” and it all went downhill for me, not just for the Truckers. Isbell’s first solo records (which we’ll get to in time) were patchy at best and something similar happened to the Truckers. Cooley still kept writing at least one incredible song per album but the overall quality of songs suffered badly. It felt like Hood, Cooley and Isbell really pushed each other to write better and once one that trio broke up, everyone’s work suffered.

I still kept an ear on what they were doing and in 2014, 8 years after Isbell’s departure, they released the album “English Oceans” and followed that in 2016 with “American Band” both of which were much more like it to my ears. So when, in 2020, it was announced there would be a new Truckers album I figured I’d shell out and get this one on vinyl.

On “American Band” and here with “The Unravelling” the Truckers have become less of the torch bearers for a South that they see that most others don’t and have become more a band that are openly commentating on the current landscape in American politics. Patterson Hood now dominates the songwriting credits with 7 of the 9 songs here written by him. This may explain why the Truckers no longer hit so hard with me as of their three pricipal songwriters (Hood, Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell) Patterson was always third on my preference list.

Most reviews drew attention to the song “Thoughts And Prayers”, a gentle but angry attack on the kind of US politician that has only those platitudes to offer after yet another nut has shot up yet another school/supermarket/shopping mall “Stick it up your ass with your useless thoughts and prayers”. That, alongside “Babies In Cages” are Hood’s stab at the state of America in the Trump years. As he says in the sleeve notes “William Gibson's dark visions have come to pass, everyone is connected and more disconnected than ever. Our children have lock-down drills."

Neither of Cooley’s songs here, “Slow Ride Argument” and “Grievance Merchants" are much to get excited about. A rocker first and a plodder that even he seems to be struggling to work up much enthusiasm for !

It’s an okay album, mercifully short at just over 40 minutes. It’s good but not great, and right or wrong, great is what I came to expect from the Truckers. But I’ll always lend them an ear.

Thoughts And Prayers - https://youtu.be/tkD4xSqNVII

“A Blessing And A Curse” gets a bad rap. Among fans and particularly amongst the band it’s regarded as their worst album. Well just to be the ornery fecker that I sometimes can be, I’m not having that. It is in no way the equal of the 3 albums previous to it, but it is so far ahead of its follow up, “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark”, that it really does shock me the shade that gets thrown at this one.

This is the last album featuring Jason Isbell and although the band were struggling under their intake of drugs and booze and interpersonal difficulties (Isbell had married bass player Shonna Tucker) their fierce righteousness still manages to shine through the haze.

Isbell contributes just two songs, “Easy On Yourself” and “Daylight”, neither of which reach previous heights although the latter shines a light on what is to come from him when he soon goes solo. 

Cooley also contributes just 2 songs, “Gravity’s Gone” and the sublime “Space City”. It’s back to the themes of “Putting People On The Moon” from “The Dirty South” but this time the story of a man who is mourning his wife, it’s another Cooley heartstring tugger.

Patterson Hood supplies most of the songs, 7 in all, and, for me, he definitely gives us the highlight of “A Blessing And  A Curse” with “A World Of Hurt”. Over a measured Country backing track featuring John Neff’s wailing pedal steel guitar, Hood talks the lyrics to the verses laying bare his changing views on love and relationships as he’s grown older, getting more positive as he goes, starting with “Once upon a time, my advice to you would have been go out and find yourself a whore, But I guess I've grown up, because I don't give that kind of advice anymore” and finishing up on the much more optimistic “Remember, it ain't too late to take a deep breath and throw yourself into it with everything you got, It's great to be alive” those last 5 words being another of the Truckers defining phrases.

Following this albums release Jason Isbell left the band to forge his own (now very successful) solo career with his band the 400 Unit and for me the Truckers lost their way for a good few years. “A Blessing And A Curse” certainly ain’t no “Southern Rock Opera” or “The Dirty South” but there is treasure to be found in here

A World Of Hurt - https://youtu.be/LAW3oBQ-Nsg