95 North. . . The Newspaper

Cautionary tales are often cemented into the catalog of stories for children for a reason. Their simple moral framing allows them to serve as anecdotes of utility, passing along moral knowledge from one generation to the next. The content of these stories is such that the emotional impact is up front, the lessons clear, and the call to action is cemented in the developing brain. However, at a certain point a cautionary tale loses its luster- it's black and white ethics don't hold a candle to the world lit with grey in front of us. Instead, we search for nuance, meaning, and dignity. When cautionary tales won't do, we are brought to a place of enrichment and meaning through songs like the Drive By Truckers emotional rocker entitled "The Fourth Night of my Drinking" off of their 2010 album The Big To-Do .  "The Fourth Night of My Drinking" may appear to, on the surface level, provide listeners with a cautionary tale on the perils of drinkin...

No one but our favorite big-hearted pal Patterson Hood could write a song like "Guns of Umpqua", a gem of a track off of the band's critically acclaimed 2016 album American Band.  "Guns of Umpqua"   discusses the shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon (2015, killed 10, injured 7) over a steadily strummed acoustic guitar, clean piano, and a melodic, and overall confident band that settles in for the journey. Mike Cooley throws a few flares of sunlight on the track with his tasteful lead guitar licks, as images of the deep green forest, evergreen giants, salmon jumping in the river, sunlight, fog, and morning coffee fill in. Here, these images of a beautiful life lived sit side by side with sounds of shots in the hallway, bringing to life the real devastation of public shootings in the United States. We hear about how great life can be. Then we hear how life can be. The song is a testament to a life well lived, outside of chaos, and i...

How about a band with not one, but three verified songwriting aces’s? Sounds good to me. And no, they're not the Beatles. Who are the Truckers? They hail from the music hotbed of  Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and are known to generally play alt-country, rock, folk, and blues. Their de facto leader is Patterson Hood, but the band has been strongly influenced by two other songwriters: Jason Isbell and Mike Cooley. Isbell, who is much younger than Hood and Cooley, was separated from the band sometime around 2007. You can read about Jason's best work here. Just like the Beatles, the band seems to follow the rule "if you write the song, you sing it". Despite the different songwriting voices that populate the Truckers albums, all three songwriters are deeply rooted i n, yet critical of, southern culture. In fact, they coined  “the duality of the southern thing" phrase, which spoke to the contradictions and complexity of southern culture. The band works hard, aren...

"Primer Coat" Mike Cooley doesn’t risk any danger here, and rightfully so: it wouldn’t suit the song. "Primer Coat" is a mid-tempo rocker, just the kinda thing the Truckers do best. Over a cascading guitar riff, picked like a waterfall in slow motion, Cooley presents one of his masterful character sketches. Meet the man who has quit drinking, misses his ex-wife, feels that his new girlfriend is too upfront, and whose sister is marrying in the fall. The thesis statement comes at the end, as we see a man traveling the roads at night, with his melancholy eyes glued towards road signs that will direct his restlessness somewhere else. Some verses? I'll quote nearly the entire first one, since it typifies the type of images Cooley can burn into your brain: "the old man's out by the swimming pool/ he goes there to think/ talks on the phone sometimes/ hardly mentions a thing/ said he needed it for hos knees/ he used to swim back in school/ graduated i...

Previous Installment's of "Hear Mike Cooley? part 1 part 2 part  3 Yet another gem off 2008's Brighter Than Creations Dark "Bob" It's been well established that Mike Cooley is as enigmatic of a musician as they come. One day he's weaving a crooked tale over ancient blues guitar riffs, the next he emerges from the dark, turns on the bright stage lights, and delivers a classic, straightforward country song perfectly. "Bob" tells the story a man with a lot of dogs who mows his mother's lawn and is probably gay. It is genuinely hard to tell if Cooley is mocking the country genre's simplicity or is proving that he can deliver a solid, perfectly served country tune with clever lyrics to match. Here, Cooley plays with cliches and then tosses them out the window: we have beer and fishing, but we also have a potentially lonely dude, an aging mother, and a certain sense of frustration with the modern world.

Jason Isbell, unquestionably one of the best songwriters today, has grown out of the songwriting factory of the band the Drive By Truckers to create his own legacy as a solo artist and with his band, the 400 Unit. You can see my first post about the Truckers  here  (although I've expanded Isbell's best songs to include 12 in total).  Without further ado, here are the best 12 songs from Jason Isbell, presented in ( roughly ) chronological order: 1. "Never Gonna Change" This song is pure grit, as Isbell documents the sentiments of hard livin' southerners. This sense of muscle and menacing toughness is emphasized by the loudness of the song, as the pull of the lead chords let the band rev it's engines. Beneath this tough veneer, however, is a kid who was abused by his dad and whose brother is wrapped up in a life of crime.  2. "Outfit" It's astounding that Isbell had the capacity to write a song like "Outfit" while i...

You can revisit previous Mike Cooley (of the Drive By Truckers) songs  somewhere around here  and right  over here.  For today's installment, we'll jump into Cooley's excellent "Perfect Timing". This tune is off 2008's fantastic record, Brighter than Creations Dark . Song Review: Mike Cooley will never be caught showing off. Never strutting musically, he plays his cards close to his hand, and whips out a few tricks only when he needs 'em. The same rule applies to "Perfect Timing", as we're introduced to a simple acoustic guitar chord sequence with the band steadily following Cooley every step of the way, complete with a bass line that almost seems to hug the song in it's warm embrace. Cooley shows his cards in brief spots, tastefully shredding on the acoustic only when the song calls for it.  Here, Cooley's lyrics are sarcastic, funny, and dark, as he exclaims "perfect timing!" after getting up from another night of pl...