Performer Notes

Drive-By Truckers: Mike Cooley, Earl Hicks, Patterson Hood, Jason Isbell, Brad Morgan.
Additional personnel: David Barbe, Clay Leverett, John Neff, Spooner Oldham, Scott Danborn, Bob Spires, Shanna Tucker.
Recorded at Chase Park Transduction Studios, Athens, Georgia.
Personnel: Jason Isbell, Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley (vocals, guitar); David Barbe (guitar, Wurlitzer organ, keyboards); Scott Danborn (fiddle); Spooner Oldham (Wurlitzer organ); Brad Morgan (drums).
Audio Mixer: David Barbe.
Recording information: Chase Park Transduction, Athens, GA (2002).
Photographer: David Wilds.
Though SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA is probably the Drive-By Truckers' most ambitious album, its follow-up, DECORATION DAY, is where the band really came into its own. The template they established on their first three albums--bluesy Southern rock with a raw punk edge and a contemporary alt-country tinge--is at it's most concise and visceral here, not only musically, but lyrically as well. In a manner not dissimilar to THE RIVER-era Springsteen, DECORATION DAY articulates working-class dilemmas with a winning mixture of thoughtfulness and rock 'n' roll abandon, understanding that the means of expressing those dilemmas is often indistinguishable from the way out of them.

Professional Reviews

Rolling Stone (12/25/03, pp.105-6) - Included in Rolling Stone's "50 Best Albums of 2003"

Rolling Stone (6/26/03, p.81) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...The leaner, softer, DECORATION DAY finds the Truckers ditching the three-guitar rave-ups and concept-album narratives of 2001's SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA in favor of tuneful evocations of the darker side of Southern life..."

Spin - (08/03, pp.111-2) - "...A raging, ragged BEHIND THE MUSIC--15 coal-black odes to the casualties that art leaves behind and that life can't avoid..." - Grade: A

Entertainment Weekly (6/20/03, p.72) - "...It's clear their vision of a proud blue collar band is evolving..." - Rating: B

Q (12/03, p.124) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...These five Alabama natives have made it their mission to keep the spirit of an era alive....There's a new sense of darkness and despair at their core..."

Mojo (Publisher) (01/01/04, p.58) - Ranked #22 in Mojo's "The Best of 2003"

Mojo (Publisher) (12/03, p.114) - 5 stars out of 5 - "Some of the songwriting is exceptional..."