Patterson Hood isn’t known for his lectures. The frontman of Drive-By Truckers usually spends his stage time performing songs with his band, but tonight in Frank M. Moody Music Building’s recital hall, he will be on stage answering questions about his career and giving insight into his songwriting.
“He’s really one of the greatest storytellers in music,” said Eric Weisbard, a University of Alabama professor and organizer of the event.
Weisbard said he has wanted to do something like this for a while. He and his wife, Ann Powers, who has been a professional music critic for The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, have been friends with Hood since the early years of DBT.
“We both wrote about them in 1999, me for The Village Voice and [Powers] for The New York Times, and ever since then, I have wanted to do some kind of public event with Patterson.”
Hood, a Florence native, started Drive-By Truckers with Mike Cooley in 1996, headquartered in Athens, Ga. Since then, the band has released nine full-length albums and has become famous for being a Southern rock band that presents the fallacies of the South. Although now based in Georgia, the Truckers write songs that often deal with their time growing up in a turbulent Alabama.
But it wasn’t easy to get Hood on a free day, seeing that he has so few.
“Patterson has always got a million things going on, whether its solo stuff or with the Truckers,” Weisbard said. “We were lucky to catch him on a free night right before a show in Birmingham.”
DBT are scheduled to play at Workplay on Friday and Saturday night at 8 p.m.
The discussion tonight will feature Weisbard and Powers on stage with Hood, asking questions that give him the opportunity to look back onto his nearly quarter-century-long music career.
Weisbard said he hopes to get Hood talking about things he normally wouldn’t at a concert, like stories from the road about Mike Cooley, the Truckers’ co-front man, and his opinion on what DBT have called “the duality of the Southern thing.”
There will also be an opportunity for the audience to ask questions.
Hood will bring his guitar, and Weisbard hopes the audience will hear some of the new music he has been working on recently. Hood has a solo album soon to be released, and some of the music played tonight will be from it.
However, tonight’s session is not as much about the musical concert as it is about picking the brain of a person who many value as a great songwriter.
“It’s a chance to see a side of him that we usually don’t really see or even think about at a show,” Weisbard said.
Martin Leavitt, a senior majoring in geography and avid fan of DBT, said he never misses an opportunity to see the band when they’re close and is certainly not going to miss this.
“His songs are very gritty and always paint vivid pictures in your mind,” Leavitt said. “I hope he’ll shed light on what’s behind some of them.”
The event is free and begins at 7:30 p.m.
“This is a really great opportunity to get up-close with someone who has been making great music for a long time,” Weisbard said. “That’s not a real common thing.”
