Drive-By Truckers and Booker T tour for Bluesfest

21 February 2009 by Soulshine News

Southern rockers the Drive-By Truckers team up with Booker T for a series of shows along the east coast, culminating in appearances at Byron Bay for Bluesfest.

Rolling Stone called the Drive-By Truckers "the boldest, baddest Southern band in the land" and the band has been living up to that moniker for the last decade. The band fuses solid musicianship with lyrics that tell real stories. "They let the songwriting speak for itself, and it sings loud and clear" (Rolling Stone).

Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley formed the band in the mid-90s, folding their love of punk, country & western, Southern rock, pop and straightahead rock 'n roll into a three-guitar, multi-songwriter powerhouse. On seven highly-acclaimed albums, including 2001's Southern Rock Opera, 2003'sDecoration Day, and 2004's The Dirty South, the Truckers survey the modern South with a complex blend of realism-tempered pride and compassionate but uncompromising analysis.

Their latest release, 2008's Brighter Than Creation's Dark, comes on the heels of a lineup change that saw songwriter/guitarist Jason Isbell leaving the band and bassist Shonna Tucker taking a bigger role in writing and singing.  Pitchfork wrote "the band expands its familiar rock sound with forays into soul, Southern boogie, and AM-gold country - all in service to tales of hard-drinking fathers, vengeful ghosts, weird Harolds and director John Ford."

With three songwriters, Brighter Than Creation's Dark holds true to the band's eclectic storytelling. "[This CD has] some songs that are quieter than any we've ever recorded and some that rock harder than anything we've ever done," Hood said.  "In the end it's still all Rock 'n Roll (which is why that will always be the description of choice to us when describing our music in stylistic terms)." Drive-By Truckers will perform their own shows and also back the mighty Booker T Jones for his appearance this year.

www.drivebytruckers.com 

And the legends of our time keep coming…Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee, Musicians Hall of Fame Inductee, Grammy Lifetime Achievement award recipient and arguably the most famous Hammond B3 player in history. 

BOOKER T. and the DBTs.

The man from Memphis Tennessee who as Booker T and the MG’s helped create the indelible Memphis/Stax sound, the man who has recorded with the likes of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Rufus Thomas, and Sam and Dave from way back in the early ‘60’s. He is the child prodigy, playing five instruments while still at school, going on to study classic music composition at Indiana University, running back to Memphis and the MG’s to play and record at weekends.

It was the instrumental Green Onions, written while still at High School in 1962, that put Booker T and his band on the music map, followed up with Time Is Tight and Hang ‘Em High. Years more of song writing, producing – Willie Nelson’s multi-platinum Stardust among others – and recording with everyone from Barbra Streisand and Bob Dylan to Ray Charles, Neil Young and George Harrison, won him the 2007 Grammy lifetime Achievement Award, and an induction into Nashville’s Musician’s Hall of Fame a year later. Now he’s performing again backed by DBT’s showcasing those super impressive vocals with original songs along with the tried and true. A class act, pure and simple.www.bookert.com    

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS & BOOKER T and the DBTs TOUR:

April 10 – The Prince
Melbourne, Australia

April 11 – The Factory
Sydney, Australia

April 12 & 13 – Drive-By Truckers
Bluesfest, Byron Bay

April 13 – Booker T. and the DBTs
Bluesfest, Byron Bay

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