Southern Rock Opera

by Drive-By Truckers

Southern Rock Opera cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: 21 September 2001
  • Label: Soul Dump
  • Country: United States
  • Length: 1:33:54
  • Community rating: 3.83/5 from 6 ratings

Artists on this release: David Barbe, Dick Cooper

Album Notes & Community Reviews

This sprawling, ambitious double album conceptually explores the complex, contradictory cultural history of the American South through the tragic, thinly veiled lens of Lynyrd Skynyrd's career. The band employs a massive, three-guitar attack to deliver gritty, whiskey-soaked country rock that is deeply sympathetic yet highly critical of Southern mythology. The storytelling masterfully addresses racism, working-class struggle, and the 'duality of the Southern thing'.

Genres

Descriptors: conscious, history, conceptual, death, alcohol

Tracklist

  1. Days Of Graduation (2:36)
  2. Ronnie And Neil (4:53)
  3. 72 (This Highway's Mean) (5:26)
  4. Dead, Drunk And Naked (4:51)
  5. Guitar Man Upstairs (3:17)
  6. Birmingham (5:03)
  7. The Southern Thing (5:08)
  8. Three Great Alabama Icons (6:51)
  9. Wallace (3:27)
  10. Zip City (5:16)
  11. Moved (4:17)
  12. Let There Be Rock (4:18)
  13. Road Cases (2:42)
  14. Women Without Whiskey (4:19)
  15. Plastic Flowers On The Highway (5:04)
  16. Cassie's Brother (4:58)
  17. Life In The Factory (5:28)
  18. Shut Up And Get On The Plane (3:38)
  19. Greenville To Baton Rouge (4:11)
  20. Angels And Fuselage (8:02)

Credits

  • Wes Freed - artwork [album cover and willard's garage visuals]
  • Amy Pike - performer
  • Anne Richmond Boston - performer
  • Brad Morgan - performer
  • Jyl Freed - performer
  • Kelly Hogan - performer
  • Mike Cooley - performer, written-by
  • Patterson Hood - performer, written-by

More from Drive-By Truckers: full discography