Drive By Truckers - "Go-Go Boots"
Somewhere I heard it said that the real difference between the North and the South is that in the North we hide our crazy people whereas in the South the crazies are celebrated. And proving it are the highly prolific Southern Drive By Truckers, who are back with Go-Go Boots, a recording casting a big bright light on all sorts of crazy people. The album is part noir, part murder ballad; a literary collection akin to the Southern Gothic novellas so richly explored by O’Connor, Williams, Faulkner, and Capote among others.
Go-Go Boots is the band’s ninth record and comes less than a year after their release of The Big To-Do. The tracks for both albums were recorded during the same sessions. And yet both records could be considered the opposite sides of the same coin. Each explores the dark and all too real world of rural, blue collar America. The Big To-Do was pure Southern Fried Rock, heavy with screaming guitars. Go-Go Boots, however, finds the Truckers giving in to their regional roots. This is a far more soulful record, one allowing that classic Muscle Shoals sound to shine through.
After various comings and goings and line- up changes the Truckers seem to have found a comfortable and effective songwriting and vocalist core with Preston Hood, Mike Cooley, and Shonna Tucker. In Hood you get an energetic twang almost cracking with emotion. Cooley offers that deep, rich constant tone, presenting the familiar cowboy image of loveable rogue. Tucker’s feminine touch provides a respite with her quiet, vulnerable sensuality that sometimes feels too intimate, as if the listener is intruding. Despite the distinct and unique qualities these three bring in their approach, on Go-Go Boots there is an odd sameness in their differences that adds cohesion to the album.
Storytelling songs have always been a tradition in music but particularly in the music of the South. From ‘The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia’ to ‘Knoxville Girl’ these narratives have taught us about corruption, cheating lovers, murder, and all the emotions swirling around struggles and failures found in everyday life. Go-Go Boots provides a satisfying peek into rural existence that at times is truly frightening. The straight-forward, simple telling of these songs creates vivid scenes that stick with you long after the needle reaches the record’s final groove. In the extended track ‘The Fireplace Poker’ we learn of a murder for hire gone wrong, ending with a satisfying twist: “Life was falling from her grasp but she still lay there trying. No one will ever know what she told him or what he told her. Cause the Reverend did his wife in, fifteen whacks, fireplace poker.” Similarly creepy is ‘Used to Be a Cop’: ”Used to have a wife but she told me I was crazy. Said she couldn’t stand the way I fidget all the time. Sometimes late at night I circle round the house. I look through the windows and dream that she’s still mine.”
All of Go-Go Boots has a story to tell and for the most part the album works. One really feels as though the Truckers are bearing witness to the lives portrayed. On ‘Dancing Ricky’ we feel the freedom of the song’s subject as he acts the fool seemingly without care: “You’ve been spinning just like a ride. What you gonna do about actin’ right?” We share an understanding and feel the pain of the man declaring: “Leaving you won’t be any harder than walking out the door and leaving town, but I will be leaving knowing surviving you don’t make me stronger than the weakest man who ever turned you down” on the old school, country infused ‘The Weakest Man’.
Go-Go Boots includes two covers by a songwriter and guitar player for the Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section, Eddie Hinton. ‘Where’s Eddie’ is a track Shonna Tucker makes her own. We feel genuine sympathy as she searches in vain for her missing love. The other Hinton track, however, ‘Everybody Needs Love’, seems more out of place, perhaps making more sense on The Big To-Do. While a technically sound recording by the band, inclusion on this record interrupts the album’s satisfyingly dark vibe. The upbeat hopeful tune seems too much like calculated redemption on a record populated by criminals and cast offs.
Go-Go Boots proves that the while the Truckers never stray too much from the themes and imagery found in the South, they do mature and evolve with each subsequent release. Though it hardly seems possible, they appear to tweak and perfect their sound and storytelling skills a little more on every record. Go-Go Boots creates unsettling and intense imagery that begs for a cross over into visual media. These stories and their characters will remain with the listener for years to come.
