Alabama Ass Whuppin': Live and Loud Way Down in Georgia (1999)
"Why Henry Drinks"
"Lookout Mountain"
"The Living Bubba"
"Too Much Sex (Too Little Jesus)"
"Don't Be in Love Around Me"
"18 Wheels of Love"
"The Avon Lady"
"Margo and Harold"
"Buttholeville"
"Steve McQueen/Gimmie' Three Steps "
"People Who Died"
"Love Like This"
Recorded LIVE in Athens and Atlanta fall 1999
(2000 - Second Heaven Records, rereleased 2002 - Terminus Records)
The best way, I imagine, to really enjoy AAW is with a couple 16 ounce PBR tall boys, a room smelling of spilt beer and sweat, and a fresh pack of camel lights. Add in the forthcoming vinyl re-release cranked up to 11 and you should have the true AAW experience.
I usually refer to AAW as the real missing link to the Truckers, and as the band (and I) grows older it only becomes more apparent. The jump from the Trucker's first two albums to Southern Rock Opera is almost alarming until one takes into account AAW, with it's "turned up to 11" guitars and it's whiskey soaked attitude colliding with Patterson's growing talent of storytelling. With the first crash of "Why Henry Drinks" it's clear that the live version already beats the hell out of the studio version, and this becomes a pattern throughout the album. Patterson announces the band's name and for the next 70 or so minutes the band rips through almost 70% of their recorded material with a ferocity that is missed on the recordings. When Cooley's lone song on the album "Love Like this" finally comes around at the end it's almost heartbreaking. The album finally lets up to a moment of drunkenly sad romantic storytelling concerning alcoholism and domestic abuse. Classic Cooley.
You could easily write multiple pages on the beauty of "The living Bubba". Patterson constantly calls it his greatest song and it's hard to argue against it. The version on AAW provides a brief set up that would be expanded on throughout the years, and it really benefits the song. The same can certainly be said of "18 wheels of Love", a song that might never be truly finished. It's performance on AAW gives it the feet that'll carry it from an almost novelty-esque song on Gangstabilly to the classic that shows up on the Austin City Limits recording.
"It's gotta be Sleezy."
"Yeah, Sleezy. Slezzy as hell man, I mean, 1971, this woman drove a 1970 impala..."
"But it's gotta be sexy too..sexy"
"No, she was nothing sexy"
The Avon Lady provides AAW with one of it's exclusives. Honestly, it's a great story, but the song sadly goes nowhere. If anything it's an experiment in a type of songwriting that Hood would later perfect with "Days Of Graduation" and "The Three Great Alabama Icons". Sure enough, as soon as the story ends the band suddenly follows, giving the lofi-live album it's only awkward moment. "People who died" gets a great take, establishing it as one of the Trucker's regular covers that will only grow in rawness and intensity over the years.
Several AHC song shows their face on the record, but one previously claimed by the Truckers sticks out. Buttholeville, a song notorious in it's home state, adds a bit of foreshadowing to the album.
"Tired of my kids, Ronnie and Neil"
On it's original release on Gangstabilly it seemed to be nothing more than a reference. But by the time "Steve McQueen" rolls around with it's inclusion of a portion of "Gimmie Three Steps" it's clear that the Truckers have something more than a simple appreciation of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Maybe they somehow relate to the band, being musicians from the south struggling against image and expectations. Patterson has said that at this point most of the next album was written, so the band had some idea of what was coming. But no one in the Athens and Atlanta audiences those nights could have seen the beast of "Southern Rock Opera" that would emerge in the next year.
looking forward to the re-issue.
