Go-Go Boots

iTunes Review

With the two-pronged songwriting attack of Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley alternating in the writing of their albums, Drive-By Truckers have an automatically diverse attack within their Southern rock roots. Bassist Shonna Tucker serves up the barroom weeper “Dancin’ Ricky” and the addition of two Eddie Hinton tracks, (“Everybody Needs Love,” “Where’s Eddie,” with Shonna Tucker’s emotive vocals), adds a soulful strut to a band that often prefer to lope in the country-rock fields. (Hinton, who died at age 51, was a guitarist for Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding, among the many). Singer Patterson Hood defines the group’s deep country sound (“I Do Believe,” “Mercy Buckets”), but it’s Cooley’s looser way with a country tune on “Cartoon Gold” and “The Weakest Man” that relaxes the band and allows them to sound like an easeful group of experienced farmhands. The Deluxe Edition includes a cover of Vic Chesnutt’s hilarious and poignant “When I Ran Off and Left Her” and the band original “I Hear You Hummin’,” along with acoustic videos of Hood performing “Everybody Needs Love” and Cooley performing “Pulaski.”