The Drive-By Truckers are set to play with former member Jason Isbell in a reunion that’s decades in the making. The announcement arrives just before Friday’s release of The Definitive Decoration Day, an expanded look back at their most celebrated album together.
“Amid all of the excitement this week for the release of The Definitive Decoration Day, we are thrilled to announce a very special appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” Drive-By Truckers co-founder Patterson Hood said in an official statement. “On Tuesday, Dec. 2nd, we will be playing a song with the very special guest and former Drive-By Trucker Jason Isbell.”
Decoration Day was the Drive-By Truckers’ first album with Isbell, who joined the band in late 2001, and their first ever to chart in the U.S. “Although we have always remained friends with Jason, and honestly he and I are closer now than ever, this is our first ‘announced’ appearance together in nearly 20 years,” Hood added.
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The Definitive Decoration Day includes the 15-track album remixed by original producer David Barbe and a 40-page, full-color book with essay by Stephen Deusner, author of Where the Devil Don’t Stay: Traveling the South with the Drive-By Truckers. The previously unreleased double album Heathens Live at Flicker Bar, Athens, GA: June 20, 2002 is also included in the box set.
“The legacy of the band has definitely grown,” Isbell said, “and there’s a new appreciation for the Truckers and especially for that era of Decoration Day. Without them, you wouldn’t have the kind of work being done by MJ Lenderman and Wednesday and Waxahatchee and a bunch of other acts. I can hear the Truckers in all that music.”
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Following Decoration Day, Isbell recorded two more LPs with the band (2004’s The Dirty South and 2006’s A Blessing and a Curse) and then began his own celebrated solo career in 2007.
“I consider Decoration Day to be our masterpiece, and he was such an integral part of that album that it’s wonderful that he’s able to join us in celebrating this release,” Hood said. “Colbert has always been our favorite, so we are really psyched to be on his show again, with our previous appearance being the week of the election in 2016. This is a rare treat for us – and you.”
Listen to Drive-By Truckers’ ‘Decoration Day’
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Their path to becoming one of the best rock bands of the new century was paved the old-fashioned way: though lots and lots of touring.
Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci
