Gimme Three Stepsisters

Gimme Three Stepsisters
Drive-By Truckers' Southern Rock Opera

by Don Allred
February 20 - 26, 2002 Issue 08

We all did what we could do.
photo: Daniel Coston
Drive-By Truckers
Southern Rock Opera
Soul Dump

"Bobby's skull was split in two, my girl was partially embedded in the
dashboard," but that wasn't enough. "The next day at graduation, everybody was
saying that the paramedics could hear 'Free Bird' still playing on the stereo—you
know, it's a very lawwng sawwwwng."
As you might suspect, the Drive-By Truckers (singers-writers-guitarists
Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, and Rob Malone, often co-[de]composing with bassist
Earl Hicks and drummer Brad Malone) are professional Southerners. Which, from
the White House on "down," means, of course, professional Weirdos. These 'uns
have well-connected brains behind their mirrorshades, even when working under
titles like Pizza Deliverance.

The people in their songs do tend to believe in some kind of Deliverance, by
pizza and/or other. On 1999's live Alabama Ass Whuppin', Truckers' real-life friend
"The Living Bubba" briskly advises, "Be careful of who you screw, I can't die
yet I've got another show to do." On the new Southern Rock Opera, a
self-described "feeble old man" is ranting to the beat of "The Guitarist Upstairs"
despite hisself (he calls the cops anyway). Next morning, a white-collar rehabee's
well-scrubbed skull keeps Everclearly bouncing back (and forth) to the zesty
phrase "Dead, Drunk, and Naked"—in that order. The Truckers' characteristic
gear-shifting rumble brushes by suggested afterglow/afterlife, ratt now. Even
on a highway full of "heat that holds you like a mother holds her son, tighter
if he runs."

Amen. 'Cause, down home (down here), one thing you don't get Delivered from
(only to), is Connection; for instance, urban sprawl just gets strung out
thinner and thinner, never quite disappearing, it's all in your grill, and in that
of a punkass backwater kid, sick of himself and his girlfriend and ever'body
else, swearing one day he'll hit the road to "Zip City" (and he will, he'll
have to. But don't think of it as a "commute," Buddy, just consider yourself "on
tour"—'ello, 'ooterville!).

Thus, the (Dee-luxe) scenic route: Southern Rock Opera, two discs, 18 songs,
94 minutes, layers of reverie, association, urban legends, and other goo,
sinuously/abrasively unwound, spilling blue skies, blue notes,
banknotes, other bills, into and out of the bug-spattered POV of a nomadic indie club
combo with boondocks high school parking lot nickel bag etc memories of Skynyrd's flights, from which they have drawn the oneness of their shining name, Betamax Guillotine (true Skyn fans will get the officially apocryphal, def apocalyptic reference: as DBT's liner notes helpfully sum,
"Video killed the radio star!"). With ID presented only in notes, yet effectively never too far from the recurring community-minded  conceptual continuity device/namesake of Sgt.Pepper's  Lonely Hearts Club Band, BG's  evidently in sonic convoy with other contemporaries and
descendants still floating in the dust of King Tut (a/k/a Lynyrd Skynyrd),
thee potentatin' post-Video Wave eternal traveler, still on tour, still re-re-repackaged, still top tribute band to its former self, still workin' for MCA. Viewpoint x attitude of classick LS line-up is also emphatically spliced in.
For openers, "Ronnie and Neil" delves into the supposedly "complicated friendship"

of once supposed arch-enemies Van Zant and Young (I thought their musically implied
 relationship went something like "Hey Hollyweird, you thank 'Southern Man'
equals 'Lyncher Man'? Kiss mah Sweet Home Alabama!"
"Ah . . . you're from Florida . . . ?"
"Well it's a metty-for, Son, you a writer too, c'mon, squeal lak a pig," but that's not
the words to this tune). I dunno how true the song is, but it sure shows what
"Ronnie" and "Neil" can mean to hot rusty voices, finally 'llowed to testify,
"Southern Man still needs them both around!" (These Truckin' voices, more than
 their picking, also remind me of the hairier geetar solos sprouting from Skyn's carefully
groomed strut.) (Wisely, Drive-By Guillotines never try to sound all that much like LS, but low-budget flights get close enough for their purposes.) This heated discussion resolves into a chorus of firewater strum, as
inevitable as Young's latest buckskin mudslide ride, as purposeful as purported
Taskmaster RVZ marching his ornery troupers from Hell to breakfast and vice versa.

In "Birmingham," a Neilian harmonic sliver goes spiraling through
bass-generated smog, around Young/Van Zant-worthy lines like "I can't wait/ to see your
face!/in Bir-ming-ham." A ghostly Truckload of faith, getting a lot further
(under this old paleface Bombingham native's skin) than the sputtering about raceheads in
"Ronnie and Neil" (just as Ronnie's tolerance lecture "Curtis Loew," was
overcome by his posthumously released "Mr. Banker" and "Walls of Raiford":
Delta-to-gatorbowl-blues, working race/class right through if not past the graveyard
shift). Although "Ronnie and Neil" 's "Four little black girls killed for no
goddam good reason" has me wondering, "What would a good reason be?" Good
question to be led into, during a war (for instance).

In related news, our correspondent in the field Patterson Hood has
discovered, while inspecting "The Three Great Alabama Icons" (Bear Bryant, Ronnie, and
George Wallace), that George is now in Hell. Not in spite of his alleged
"change of heart" re race relations, which helped get him re-re-re-elected. No,
because of it. That fortuitous flip-flop (actually back to his pre-gubernatorial
moderation, 'twas claimed), fake or real, seals the deal, provides yer
"closure." The Devil wants to keep his homeboy close;  seems like one uncanny opportunist
recognizes another. "So put another log on the fire, boys..."

H'm-m-m. Maybe George met Ronnie and the Devil, walkin' side by side? Ronnie
(somehow) knew just how to spin "Sweet Home Alabama," for instance with that
slightly blurred "boo! boo! boo!" right after "in Birmingham they love the
Guv'ner." C'est finesse! He even got an honorary lieutenant governorship—oh yeah,
and a platinum nest egg—out of it. Also, in "Gimme Three Steps," Ronnie made
talking your way into a chance to run from a fight seem cool—it was cool,
especially when presented with manly enough flair. He'd be back for more.

But that's not why Ronnie's in Hell (or the Other Place). I'd say it's
because, according to Trucker-talk, he succeeded all too well in
selling backup singer Cassie Gaines (played on several tracks by suavely-belting
guest star Kelly Hogan [whose kaleidoscopic Atlanta-based art pop band The Jody Grind lost two members, and their opening act, poet Deacon Lunchbox, in a 1992 Alabama van crash])
---also selling himself---on this:"When it comes your time to go, ain't no good way to
go about it, no use thinking about it, you'll just drive yourself insane. Living in fear's
just another way of dying, so shut your mouth, and get your ass on the plane."
The sooner they all do that, the sooner they can "give this piece of shit back
to Aerosmith!"

Later there's someone on the ground, amid "Angels and Fuselage," calling
toward "what's coming next." (Here, it's better if you burn [or, in my case, dub]
in a Pizza Deliverance song, "Mrs. Dubose," in which another voice, somewhat
like Ronnie's, is overheard, among ordinary afternoon sounds: "You were such a
flower, now there's dust running through your veins, when my body dies, will
you remember my name?" I believe so).

The Drive-By Truckers have just been signed to open for Lynyrd Skynyrd, on
three early March dates, in Skynyrd's own Florida. They'll perform
Southern Rock Opera, natcherly. Especially heavy because bassist Leon Wilkeson,
 one of the few heretofore-surviving original Skyns, recently slipped out of the blue,
and into the black. (See drivebytruckers.com, grassrootsmedia.com, and
skynyrd.com for more information.)

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