lassic Souhthron RAWK: it' always about the guitars, really. Not the iconic snapbrim hatted Ronnie Van Zant sugarfooting across the stage and takin' his three steps out the door, not middle brother Donnie's 'Wild Eyed" arena shtick, and heaven forbid not little Johnny, the truck drivin' "Last of the Wild Ones." Nope it's about the axemen. Duane Allman roaring out of Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals to lay some smackdown on Layla and the "Clapton is God" myth; Dickey Betts as second banana but lead "Ramblin' Man," the soaring Allen Collins, the lightning licks of Gary Rossington on Berneice, the psychedelic outsider Ed King, and the doomed replacement Steve Gaines. In fact since Tampa, FL's Outlaws pioneered the format in the early 1970s it's often been about a triple-pronged guitar attack. And then along came the Drive-By Truckers with their gunslingers three: Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, Jason Isbell. After getting their Skynyrd/Betamax Guillotine on, they head back to the murkier regional waters of Decoration Day (Yankee translation: Memorial Day). While the classic recent rave-up "Never Gonna Change," might seem a logical place to start an investigation of the current state of the three guitar lineup art, I suggest we go back a year and an album and check out "Your Daddy Hates Me."

Patterson Hood notes that this song is "about divorce and the emotional fallout that follows." It's also about the odd Freudian psychic arrangements that tie fathers to daughters and intermarried families to each other while often tearing them apart. And it's about the bifurcated nature of Southern manhood: Father's sons but Mama's boys: "And I always loved your Daddy, I loved your Mama even more." But mostly, at least to me, it's about the variety of beautiful rackets the electrical guitar can be manipulated into making.

To get this Perfect Moment in Pop, you gotta let the song flow for a while as the three guitarists trade leisurely and self-restrained licks. And then it happens for the first time at about the 3:53 mark. Egged on by former Sugar bassist and current studio guru David Barbe, they let loose one of what Jason Isbell calls Barbe's encyclopedic "cool old sounds." Specifically Mike Cooley smears a high-pitched riff which ducks in and out of the mix over and under the other two guitars and ratchets up the song's underlying tension. Barbe himself enters the fray around the 5:58 mark with what Patterson Hood calls a "moaning sound," a more eloquent phrase than the liner notes' bland "additional guitar." What "Your Daddy Hates Me" is is the definitive southern take on three guitars (not so) gently weeping.

"TURN IT UP!"