This is my good friend Heather. She is one of kind, so is her dad and brother. You'll always know shes in the room, because you can hear her over all the rest. She has never met a stranger in HER LIFE! Too many crazy stories to tell about her. I've met more of my good friends through her than anybody else, she really is a joy to hang with. By the way guys she is single!!

Is this redneck or what?

The Dukes of Hazzards could have saved a lot of money on weilding supplies.

Jason Isbell

Confesssions of a Trucker
Spotlight on Drive-By Truckers' newest member Jason Isbell
By Jason Gross
Published November 16, 2005



Trying to fit in as the newbie in an established band is a weird, awkward, disorienting task - just ask Ron Wood what it was like to join the Rolling Stones or Steve Gaines what being the new kid in Lynyrd Skynyrd felt like (actually, you can't ask him because he died in that 77 plane crash, but you get the point). Such was the case when singer, songwriter and guitarist Jason Isbell joined nouveau Southern rock gods the Drive-By Truckers seven years and four albums after the band's 1996 debut.

A native of 60s music mecca Muscle Shoals, AL, Isbell took the bar-band route in high school, having studio session man and local legend David Hood as one of his mentors. In 1997, Isbell decided to study English at the University of Memphis. "I just wanted to write songs," he said in a recent phone interview. "I wanted to learn as much as I could about putting words on paper and making them mean exactly what you want."

Occasionally returning to the Shoals on weekends, he would stay at a local musicians' house and made some important connections. For one, he met Hood's son Patterson, who happened to be the principal singer and songwriter with the Truckers. "They were working on Southern Rock Opera (their epic fourth album, from 2001). Patterson was really excited about the record," Isbell remembered. "That was the first time I heard the Truckers and knowing Patterson helped me realize what that record was about."

Not long after, Isbell toured North Alabama and Memphis, doing acoustic shows with Hood and booking a solo show in Memphis. Isbell didn't have enough material, so he wrote a set of songs quickly and wound up getting a publishing deal in 2002 with the legendary Fame Studios, where a string of classic records were made, including Wilson Pickett's "Mustang Sally," Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman" and the Aretha Franklin masterpiece I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You.

Before Isbell got a chance to pursue the deal, though, the Truckers came back into his life. "They were playing a party at that same house we stayed at," he said. "There was an empty chair there. Half-way through, Patterson said, 'Go ahead, sit down and play.' So I played and that's all the transition there was. It was a Saturday and we left Monday for an Oklahoma show. So I had about a day's notice to get my shit together. I learned most of Opera in the van."

Luckily for Isbell, the other members of the band accepted him, not just as the new guitar player but also a songwriter alongside Hood and co-founder Mike Cooley. "If I came in with a song that sounded like fucking Bauhaus, as long as it was a good song, they probably wouldn't mind, though Cooley would probably give me shit," Isbell said. He also found that the band had established a tight rapport. "If there's a song that's not strong enough for a Truckers' record, the person who wrote it will usually be the one to cut it. I think it's just a matter of the chemistry we have in the band."

When it came time to record his first Truckers album, Decoration Day, in 2003, the band had been bouncing around enough material to come up with a theme. "That caused a key to be turned in our head and made us write songs that would be along the same lines or along the exact opposite lines of our other songs," Isbell said. "Everybody was in the same shitty mood except for me - I was just happy to be there. Everybody else was writing about relationship problems, having to start over and the fallout from the making of the Opera." By the time of 2004's The Dirty South, Isbell's songs were turning toward more personal matters: "I'd been writing about the things that I'd been dealing with - going on the road, taking care of yourself and what happens if you don't."

Now, the Truckers are in the studio again, working on a new album tentatively titled A Blessing and a Curse. Isbell said the band has found itself taking yet another creative turn: "We just came into the studio and said, 'Here's one, let's do it.' That was a change because we didn't have any point-counterpoint thing to bounce off of." Isbell said he's also prepping a solo record for year's end, Silence of the Ditch. He said his and Hood's solo outings don't signal the end of the band. "We all need other ways to get our songs recorded and released," said Isbell. "If we didn't do solo records, we would probably drive each other crazier."

Mitch

This is my friend Mitch (the one in the middle). His main goal in life is to escape Florence and has done it several times, but as we here in The Shoals area know you never can escape it you evntually come back. He says he once join the Atheist group in Mobile, but they had too many meetings and took it way to serouis.
The first time I ever met him was at 2:00 am in the morning. He knocked on my door with two hot bartender chicks in each arm and a bottle of homemade watermelon wine in one hand. And in a drunkin growlly voice said "you need to drink some of this!!" By the way the girls in the pics are not the bartenders. We've been friends ever since. Even last friday I got a knock on my door at 1 a.m. and we stayed up till 5 a.m. drinking whiskey and beer. There are many more stoies in this guy I'll tell ya some another day maybe. "Women with out Whiskey, Whiskey is hard to beat" Pat Hood-DBT

Hannah

This is my neice Hannah. She so cute!! My sister picked her up in Chingchong, China last year. She gonna be spoiled rotten.

Gina

Last night I was trying to go to sleep, but my mind keep racing and keeping me up. I was thinking about what to put on my new BLOG, should I put pics of my friends and what to say about them. While going through the list in my head I came to my friend Gina and had a revelation on life.
Gina is a friend of mine at work. She’s great to hang out with and drink a couple of beers. Just a really cool person and a good looking Gal too. The first time I met her was her first day at work, but I had known her from elementary school at Mars Hill Bible School that is. She was about 2 grades ahead of me. All through she does not remember me, because I was in a lower grade.
That got me to thinking, I don’t remember to many people I went to school with that were 2 or three grades below me either, but I can remember tons of people that were even 4 grades ahead of me!
I think in life at an early age we tend to look ahead, maybe because there not much to look back on and we’re eager to see what happening around the next corner of our life. Even in our twenties we’re looking ahead, but when we get into our thirties and forties we’re looking in both directions. Cringing at our future and gladly looking back on our past or maybe the past we have wasted. When we get older I guess we just remember our past and bitch about our current state of being, because we know what the next corner is. That’s at least what my grandmother does at 88 years of age.
O well that what I was thinking before I dosed off. By the way I have some really weird dreams too! I might post them here if I remember. O I remember this one about the two naked women…………………..

This was me in my past life. I just wish I could remember it.

The Tornados of 74’. I was about 8 years old maybe in the 4th grade. I remember being pulled out of bed at about 2 am in the morning. Tossed in the bathtub, and I was scared as Hell, but so was everybody else. The tornado went just north and south of us. I Remember going back to Mars Hill elementary school and seeing all the uprooted trees and debris that was left out the back of our school. It was amazing. So, now when the clouds get just right and the humidity is too much to bare, I can see the tornados coming and there brewing in the air. And It did sound just like a damn train!!! ALLEN ! }

The rest of this is by Pat Hood. Good read and every damn word is true!!!!
This first paragraph is about the two cities Gwinn, Alabama.
Somewhere in Alabama, there are two towns with the same name. The neighboring communities were at war with each other and each bitterly claimed the right to the name. It was not a particularly fancy or memorable name, but maybe it was a matter of pride. At any rate, they sued each other and counter sued and each issued official proclamations condemning the other. It seemed like they were about to fight it out in the streets when someone suggested they both keep the name but one add a dash to the middle of the word to differentiate. Finally there was peace, but it was short-lived. In the spring of 1974, a tornado went through both towns leaving death and destruction in its path. The April Twister virtually wiped both towns off the map. Survivors from both communities set up shelters and opened up their homes to each other. The same tornadoes hit my hometown that night. One of the tornadoes blew the roof off of my elementary school and a bunch of houses in my Grandmother’s neighborhood. Out at my Great Uncle’s farm, dozens of trees were uprooted, leaving a tangled jungle of oaks and elms. In the imaginations of my cousin and me, it became a war zone for our make-believe armies. I was about nine and Walking Tall was playing at one of the only movie theatres in town. Sometimes we’d play a game based on that movie, too. Tommy was bigger than me, so he always got to be Buford Pusser, the mythical redneck sheriff who carried a big hickory stick and busted up the stills in nearby McNairy County. We both drove go-carts through the hills and fields and through paths my Great Uncle cut for us in the wooded lot. Even then, I kind of liked the idea of playing the outlaw. My family’s farm is located in the McGee Towncommunity, less than a mile from the farm where Sam Phillips grew up. In the fifties, Sam Phillips discovered young Carl Perkins and produced his landmark hit “Blue Suede Shoes.” Sam had told all of his acts that the first one to hit number one would get a brand new Cadillac. Everyone probably expected Elvis to win that Cadillac, but Perkins got there first. The Cadillac was then charged back to him against his royalties. Welcome to the Music Industry. At least Perkins actually got to own the Cadillac he paid for. Around the same time as the tornado, Cooley’s father took him to see Carl Perkins play at the Hayloft Opry in downtown Tuscumbia. Young Cooley had his mind blown by the show he saw. This was the show that first turned him on to the power of Rock and Roll. A few years later, Brad’s parents were in Memphis on business when they saw the ambulance pull out of Graceland. They were just there by chance. Out of curiosity they walked up the drive and saw one of Rock and Roll’s saddest chapters play out. Their home movies have footage of the flowers of mourning at the Graceland gate. A few years later, Jason and Shonna were each born into proud, hard-working families with rich musical backgrounds. They both grew up (10 or so miles apart) listening to Johnny Cash and bluegrass. Jason used to raid his Daddy’s record collection, listening to the ‘70s arena rock that had been such a part of his fleeting youth. Later, Jason moved to Memphis (as had Cooley and I a few years earlier). Shonna, who grew up in Killen, stayed in the Shoals area, where she became a very respected member of that area’s long musical tradition. She and Jason played in various bands together until we “borrowed” him a couple of years back….. Such is how things are down here. Welcome to The Mythological South. Some of the stories we’re telling here happened some time ago. Many are set in the mid-seventies and early-eighties. Don’t really matter when or even if it happened. A couple of stories come from folklore of nearly a century ago. Some of it happened last night. Perhaps you heard the commotion. The newspaper might have told part of the story. Some of it we totally made up. It’s only true if you believe it. It’s only a lie if you don’t. You might have seen it happen, or perhaps you weren’t really looking. Maybe it’s someone you once knew, wherever you’re from. The South is a geographically beautiful region. Big rivers cut through red clay hills, green grass and shady trees. At least it was that way before they strip-mined and strip-malled us into bland suburbia and conformist complacency. Our factories are all shutting down and our farms are being replaced with poultry plants. Hell, even our small towns have sprawl. In some cases, the sprawl predates the town. Many of the hard times being sung about in these songs have been replaced by even harder times. Sam’s Club has got baloney in them big ol’ sticks and we got free samples out the ass but our small downtowns and court house squares are being boarded up and torn down. Welcome to The Dirty South. It’s a tough place to make a living, but we ain’t complainin’, just doing what we got to do. Trying to raise our kids and love our women. Do right by the ones we love. But don’t fuck with us or we’ll cut off your head and throw your body over a spillway at the Wilson Dam. We’ll burn your house down. We mean business and it ain’t personal. Hell, I always liked ya. I might not want to get my hands dirty, but I got this buddy… In the end, I’ll continue loving my family. I’ll try not to fuck up too bad. Maybe I’ll live to tell the tale.
Turn it up to 10 and rip off the knob. – Patterson Hood

This is me.

There ain't much differance in the man I wanta be, than the man I already am!