Do312 - What to do in Chicago

When the Drive-By Truckers
released Southern Rock Opera in 2001, they knew they’d be kicking up
some Dixie dust; the album is a warts-and-all look at the experience of growing
up in sweet home Alabama and environs, and the tug-of-war between accepting
(even loving) the land of the Confederacy and overcoming its less-enlightened
attitudes.

Steered by leader Patterson Hood’s equally Skynyrd- and Crazy
Horse-loving sensibilities and a Skynyrdlike triple-guitar attack, what it
kicked was ass; so did 2004’s The Dirty South. Hood (son of Muscle
Shoals session player David Hood), DBT co-founder Mike Cooley and bandmates
Brad Morgan, John Neff, Jay Gonzalez and Shonna Tucker have built a huge
following with a catalog full of similar fare featuring literate,
take-no-prisoners subjects and burning roots rock.

Their latest, The Big
To-Do, is full of hard-luck and hard-living stories, a song cycle of
failure in a time when Americans know all too well what it feels like. In his
All Music Guide review, Mark Deming said, “The Drive-By Truckers have been the
best and smartest hard rock band in America for a while now, but with The
Big To-Do they also confirm they’re one of the bravest.”