Category Archives: Drive-by Truckers

September 14: Mike Cooley is 48 Happy Birthday

mike-cooley

Mike Cooley, guitarist, songwriter and singer in one of our favorite bands Drive-By Truckers, was born 14 September 1966.

Happy Birthday, Mike Cooley!

Drive-By Truckers are an alternative country/Southern rock band based in Athens, Georgia, but two of the members (Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley) are originally from The Shoals region of Northern Alabama, and the band strongly identifies with Alabama. Their music uses three guitars as well as bass, drums, and now keyboards.

During a recent solo tour, the Drive by Truckers’ Mike Cooley stopped by the Fretboard Journal magazine offices to perform this tune. “Birthday Boy” originally appeared on the DBT’s album ‘The Big To-Do.’ Cooley also describes the unique guitar he’s playing, built by luthier Scott Baxendale.

Mike Cooley – Birthday Boy:

Drive-By Truckers was co-founded by Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood in Athens, Georgia, in 1996. The two had played in various other bands including Adam’s House Cat which was chosen as a top ten Best Unsigned Band by a Musician contest in the late 1980s. After the demise of Adam’s House Cat, Cooley and Hood performed as a duo under the name “Virgil Kane.” They eventually started a new band, “Horsepussy,” before splitting for a few years. It was during this split that Hood moved to Athens, Georgia and began forming what would become Drive-By Truckers. Cooley soon followed.

Continue reading September 14: Mike Cooley is 48 Happy Birthday

Today: Happy 50th birthday Patterson Hood

pattersonhood American musician and singer/songwriter, plays Guitar, Banjo, Mandolin, Piano and works as producer and mixing engineer, born March 24, 1964. He is best known as leader of the Drive-By Truckers.
His father is David Hood, longtime bassist of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.

Continue reading Today: Happy 50th birthday Patterson Hood

Today: Mike Cooley is 47 Happy Birthday

mike-cooley

Mike Cooley, guitarist, songwriter and singer in one of our favorite bands Drive-By Truckers, was born 14 September 1966.

Happy Birthday, Mike Cooley!

Drive-By Truckers are an alternative country/Southern rock band based in Athens, Georgia, but two of the members (Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley) are originally from The Shoals region of Northern Alabama, and the band strongly identifies with Alabama. Their music uses three guitars as well as bass, drums, and now keyboards.

During a recent solo tour, the Drive by Truckers’ Mike Cooley stopped by the Fretboard Journal magazine offices to perform this tune. “Birthday Boy” originally appeared on the DBT’s album ‘The Big To-Do.’ Cooley also describes the unique guitar he’s playing, built by luthier Scott Baxendale.

Mike Cooley – Birthday Boy:

Drive-By Truckers was co-founded by Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood in Athens, Georgia, in 1996. The two had played in various other bands including Adam’s House Cat which was chosen as a top ten Best Unsigned Band by a Musician contest in the late 1980s. After the demise of Adam’s House Cat, Cooley and Hood performed as a duo under the name “Virgil Kane.” They eventually started a new band, “Horsepussy,” before splitting for a few years. It was during this split that Hood moved to Athens, Georgia and began forming what would become Drive-By Truckers. Cooley soon followed.

Mike Cooley – Gravity’s Gone (The Hideout, Chicago, November 29, 2012):

 

” After spending much of his young life scrapping in the rock & roll trenches, he’s become one of the best songwriters of his generation, having
amassed a catalog of songs that can go toe-to-toe with any of his contemporaries. Along the way, he and DriveBy Truckers have become an acclaimed, enduring lynchpin of American rock & roll. And now, with The Fool on Every Corner, Cooley begins the latest chapter in his impressive career, uncompromising as always, and more thankful than ever.

I’m lucky as hell,” he says. “No doubt about it. I’m not rich, I’m probably not gonna be, and I’m totally cool with
that. But I’m making my living, and I do what I want—I do it my way. I’ve got an awesome family, a bunch of
great friends, loyal fans. And I think about that every day. It just would be immoral for me not to.”

– drivebytruckers.com (press release, Fool on Every Corner)

Today’s album is Fool On Every Corner (Spotify):

 

Continue reading Today: Mike Cooley is 47 Happy Birthday

Today: Patterson Hood is 49

Pattersoon Hood

“It in no way denies the horrible things that happened in the South during the civil rights struggle, … The KKK and church bombings – all of those things did happen, but at the same time there were people like my father making Aretha Franklin records, these southern white boys who made their living playing on some of the best soul records ever made.”
~Patterson Hood

American musician and singer/songwriter, plays Guitar, Banjo, Mandolin, Piano and works as producer and mixing engineer, born March 24, 1964. He is best known as leader of the Drive-By Truckers.
His father is David Hood, longtime bassist of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.

One of last years best songs from no.3 album on JV’s “The 25 best albums of 2012” is “Come back little Star”.

“Come Back Little Star” (Live at WFUV):

patterson hood live 2012

Mike Cooley & Patterson Hood formed the Drive-By Truckers in 1996, following a mutual relocation to Athens, GA. Drawing equal influence from country and rock & roll, the Drive-By Truckers released their first album, Gangstabilly, in 1998. However, it was with their ambitious double-disc set, 2001’s Southern Rock Opera, that garnered the Truckers their first dose of nationwide critical acclaim. Southern Rock Opera’s success as an independent release helped earn the a band a contract with Lost Highway Records, which soon reissued the album on a wider scale. After the label had a falling out with the DBTs over their somber follow-up, Decoration Day, the group bought the album back from Lost Highway and, instead, partnered with the independent label New West Records. Decoration Day was then released to rave reviews in 2003.
Mark Deming (allmusic.com)

patterson hood and mike cooley

One of the best songs from DBT’s brilliant “Southern Rock Opera”:

Ronnie & Neil:

Also check out my earlier posts:

drive-by-truckers

Another song from his great solo album from 2012: “Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance ”

Leaving Time:

Album of the day:

Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance (2012)

patterson hood heat lightnin Rumbles in the Distanceg

….While Patterson Hood’s first two solo albums were full of fine music, they often seemed to have been created as a venue for songs that just didn’t suit the DBTs. Heat Lightning Rumbles in the Distance, on the other hand, stands on its own as a catalog of troubled hearts and souls, and it’s a brave, compelling collection from an artist who continues to evolve in remarkable and unexpected ways.
Mark Deming – allmusic.com

Spotify:

Other MAR-24:

Continue reading Today: Patterson Hood is 49

Best albums of the year 2011

These are the 25 chosen albums from 2011. The list is a collaboration between Egil and Hallgeir, and has been decided through discussion and mathematics. The Math have had second place, our feelings comes first. We both presented our individual lists as a starting point, the result is the list we present here, the best list of the best albums from a good year!

Click on the album cover or the link to get our descriptions of the album and a list of our chosen tracks for each record.

 

 

 

1. Drive-by Truckers – Go Go Boots
2. Wilco – The Whole Love
3. Gillian Welch – The Harrow and The Harvest
4. The Deep Dark Woods – The Place I left behind

 

 

 

5. Tom Waits – Bad as me
6. Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire
7. Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost
8. The Damn Quails – Down the Hatch

 

 

 

9. Dave Alvin – Eleven Eleven
10. The Black Keys – El Camino
11. Feist – Metals
12. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

 

 

 

13. Charles Bradley – No Time for Dreaming
14. The Decemberists – The King is Dead
15. Josh T. Pearson – Last of the Country Gentlemen
16. My Morning Jacket – Circuital

 

 

 

17. Hayes Carll – KMAG YOYO
18. Dawes – Nothing is wrong
19. Greg Allman – Low Country Blues
20. The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow

 

 

 

21. Jason Isbell – Here We Rest
22. Anna Ternheim – The Night Visitor
23. Deadman – Take Up Your Mat And Walk
24. Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi present Rome

 

 

 

25. Lucinda Williams – Blessed

Our original note system (with errors and all):