"Good ideas always start with a full glass," Mike Cooley, singer-guitarist-songwriter of Southern road warriors Drive-By Truckers, sings here in "Pulaski." But Cooley sounds as sharp and wise as a Georgia country judge on this solo debut, an acoustic live set mostly drawn from his Truckers songs. The emphasis is plain and compelling: Cooley's syrupy drawl and his acute observations of the weird in everyday life (the redneck neighbor in "Guitar Man Upstairs") and almost comic, tender salvation ("Marry Me"). The Truckers' sons-of-Skynyrd roar is usually the meat on these bones. Here you get Cooley's ideas the way they first come to him: straight, no chaser.
Listen to The Fool on Every Corner:
