Mike Cooley, Patterson Hood & Jason Isbell
★★★
Live At The Shoals Theatre THIRTY TIGERS. LP
Four albums, three past and present Drive-By Truckers, one show.
By 2014, the scars from Jason Isbell’s unamicable 2007 departure from Drive-By Truckers had healed. When their mutual friend, actor Terry Pace, needed help paying medical bills after a stroke, Isbell and DBT founders Hood and Cooley played this acoustic, in-the-round, one-off benefit in Florence, Alabama. The stripped-down format is a mixed blessing. There’s no room for the Truckers’ country soul aspect and the layering which makes them much more than a bar band. Alternatively, without musical clutter, the material has new room to breathe, and when the trio harmonise sparingly on Heathens and guitars gently clash on Eyes Like Glue, they soar. Better still, story songs such as Carl Perkins’ Cadillac (Sun’s Sam Phillips ‘gave’ him one after Blue Suede Shoes but deducted it from Perkins’ royalties) have new clarity and fresh poignancy.