BONUS TRACKS: Drive-By Truckers Announce Tour Revisiting ‘Southern Rock Opera’

“It ain’t about the past,” the Drive-By Truckers proclaimed this week in announcing a tour to revisit their 2001 Southern Rock Opera double album. That’s because so many of those songs still speak to the state of the South — and “the duality of the Southern thing,” to borrow another quote from the album — in 2024. “A lot has happened in the decades since it came out, both to the band and to the world we live in,” Patterson Hood explained in a social media post. “We feel that the record, while somewhat timeless, also has a current timeliness to it considering the social and political issues of today. Instead of performing it as if it’s still 2000AD, we want to make it our own, reflecting who we all are now in 2024. It’s going to be intense, but also a hell of a lot of fun.” Check out dates for the 39-city tour, which starts in June, here if you want to see them at the rock show. Learn more about the album, then and now, and the tour in this interview with Hood in Garden & Gun.

The Country Music Hall of Fame announced its 2024 members-elect this week. Added to the ranks of country music’s highest honorees this year will be John Anderson, James Burton, and Toby Keith. Anderson, inducted in the Veterans Era category, scored hits like “Wild and Blue,” “Seminole Wind,” and “Swingin’” with his distinctive voice. Burton, in the Recording and/or Touring Musician category, played guitar with Ricky Nelson, Elvis Presley, Emmylou Harris, and many more after getting his start at age 15 as a staff musician on Louisiana Hayride. This year’s Modern Era Artist inductee is Keith, who died in February after a long battle with stomach cancer. While the Hall of Fame has a rule against electing artists in the same year as they died, the New York Times explains, the Oklahoma singer-songwriter was eligible because his passing came three days after voting for this year’s inductees had closed. He was not notified of his induction before he died. Learn more about each of the members-elect here. They will be inducted in a ceremony at the Hall of Fame in Nashville on Oct. 20.

When you buy a record, are you buying it as a savvy investment, or because you want to enjoy the music, or at least support the artist? Sure, some people make some dough selling off gems from their record collection, especially if they have the patience to wait a few decades, but that’s not what motivates most of us. On a much larger scale, private equity is buying music voraciously, but there’s no love or fandom involved. Investment firms are snapping up rights to the greatest hits of yesteryear, all with the aim of making a buck. A lot of bucks. Which is fine, theoretically. But, as this guest opinion piece in The New York Times points out, there’s a damaging effect to modern music that you might not have thought about. In order to get the most out of their investment, these firms are making sure the music they own the rights to gets played wherever possible, as much as possible. Instead of investing their profits into new music creation or discovery, they’re recycling what they’ve got, via remixes and repackaging and revisiting. But that can’t happen endlessly … can it? Read the piece, titled “Same Old Song: Private Equity is Destroying our Music Ecosystem,” here.

They may seem a bit like extras on the set of a band’s onstage drama, but touring band members can help shape a band’s sound and sometimes become fixtures in the live setup for years. The Guardian talks to some of these musicians about what they’ve seen and heard, and how they feel about being with the band but not in the band, sometimes for decades.

WHAT WE’RE LISTENING TO

Here’s a sampling of the songs, albums, bands, and sounds No Depression staffers have been into this week:

Willie Nelson and Kermit the Frog – “Rainbow Connection” at Luck Reunion 2024
Willie Nelson – “The Border,” the title track from his new album, coming in May
Molly Tuttle – “Texas Hold ’Em” (Beyoncé cover)
Molly Tuttle – “Ruby Soho” (Rancid cover)
The War and Treaty – “Stealing a Kiss”
Wood Box Heroes – “Cannonball”
Arlo McKinley – This Mess We’re In
Jeremy Dutcher – Motewolonuwok
Maggie Rogers – “So Sick of Dreaming,” from her new album, Don’t Forget Me, coming in April
Billy Allen + The Pollies – “All Of Me”
Raye Zaragoza – “Bring That River Home”
Shannon and the Clams – “Real or Magic,” from their new album, The Moon Is in the Wrong Place, coming in May