Drive-By Truckers are reimagining their beloved 2004 album, The Dirty South, this summer in a version said to hew closer to “the way it was always intended to be heard,” according to group member Patterson Hood. The Complete Dirty South arrives June 16 from New West Records and is led by a new incarnation of “Puttin’ People on the Moon,” with newly recorded vocals from Hood.
“We recorded it in Muscle Shoals (in one take) in January 2004, but by the time the record came out, I had already begun to regret the vocal take, which attempted some things I hadn’t yet really learned how to do at that time,” Hood says of the track. “As the years have passed, it is one of two on that album that has always really bothered me when I hear it played, while live it has morphed into a truly powerful song for me to sing. When we were given the opportunity to do a ‘Directors Cut’ version of what many consider to be our masterpiece, I wanted to take another stab at that vocal and nailed what I believe to be a definitive version of it in one take — one that truly captures the inherent anger and despair of the song as written and played by the band. The scream at the end might be the most primal recording of my voice anywhere in our catalog and I’m very proud to have this version out there after all these years. The Complete Dirty South might indeed be DBT’s masterpiece.”
The Complete Dirty South boasts a new sequence reflecting the originally proposed 17-song running order. Among them are three bonus tracks left off the album, four remixes, and two songs with fresh vocals. Hood also penned new liner notes for the project, while fellow band members Mike Cooley and Jason Isbell contributed to the track-by-track descriptions.
500 “whiskey”-colored LPs will also be available, featuring a lithograph autographed by Hood, Cooley, Isbell, and band members Shonna Tucker and Brad Morgan.
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Here is the track list for Drive-By Truckers’ The Complete Dirty South:
“Where the Devil Don’t Stay”
‘Tornadoes”
“The Day John Henry Died”
“Puttin’ People on the Moon” (remixed & featuring new vocals)
“Goode’s Field Road” (remixed)
“Carl Perkins’ Cadillac”
“TVA”
“The Sands of Iwo Jima” (remixed & featuring new vocals)
“Danko/Manuel”
“The Boys From Alabama”
“The Buford Stick”
“Never Gonna Change”
“Cottonseed”
“The Great Car Dealer War” (remixed)
“Daddy’s Cup”
“Lookout Mountain”
“Goddamn Lonely Love”
