September 2021: Southern Accents

Books read this month: The Storyteller (Dave Grohl, Simon & Shuster, 2021); Where The Devil Don't Stay: Travelling Through The South with Drive-By Truckers (Stephen Deusner, University of Texas Press, 2021).

For some things, at some times, it's the same time all over the world. Except in the southern states of America. Similar to my home town of Liverpool, there's an exceptionalism to the place (in both good and bad ways) that others it. Except that the otherness that is said to separate the deep south and Liverpool from the US and UK respectively, could also be the tie that binds them together. Perpetual exceptionalism is dangerous. As dangerous as those construct-confounding Confederate or Union flags? The answer your gut has just provided is the right one. The point of this political pontification is that Dave Grohl was born in Virginia and Stephen Deusner was born in Tennessee and both have written books that contain a grace only found when writers recognise the filips and flaws their favourite places plant in a lifetime's work.

Everyone likes Dave Grohl, don't they? No matter if you're a fan of early 80s US hardcore, his catalytic 'Sound City' documentary, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, the brilliant 'Sonic Highways' series or a fan of 'Drummer's Wives' magazine (I might have made that last one up), Grohl has a place in the heart of most music fans. You can tell. His book, The Storyteller, travels from wild nights in Amsterdam with headbangers and heroin addicts to private rooms in the back of LA restaurants with businessmen and Beatles. Well, just the one Beatle... but it is Paul. McCartney plays a vital role in the book, representing not just a young drummer from Virginia making his mark in music, but teaching the author how to hold on to humility and humour during times he thought he could only dream of. Stories about the Scouse singer and songwriter being kind to Grohl's daughter and the mum of an old mate of his will leave you moist around the eyes, but it's the plain prose Grohl employs to tell these extraordinary tales that takes you on the journey. You can't help but be dazzled by his dutiful descriptions of the twists and turns his life takes as he talks to you like you're having a beer backstage before a Foos' show. The book pivots on Grohl's telling of the time Joan Jett entered his family's orbit, taking in talk of toy shopping in London, bedtime stories and a turn of events that will leave you loving rock 'n' roll more than ever. It's the chapter - one among many examples in this short, sharp shock of a book - where you forgive "the world's greatest drummer" for hitting his snare too hard with celebrity names and realise all the name-drops are leading up to days Grohl realised where the best of the rest of his life was going to be. With that in mind, the fact the book keeps the spotlight away from Kurt Cobain's death and the maudlin attention to minutiae that dominates the post-suicide Nirvana narratives reveals all: it's positive mental attitude all the way from Grohl. Looking for a scab-scratching, navel-gazing, art-analysing, monkey-wrench of a read? This isn't it. But if you're looking for the best of times told gallantly with grace and good humour, The Storyteller is for you.

From a story that begins close to the American south then heads all across the world, we move to a read rooted, embedded, embracing and embattled with the past and the present of the place. Where The Devil Don't Stay: Travelling Through The South with Drive-By Truckers earns its subtitle through an attention to detail that could only be contextualised by a writer enamoured with their subject. No Depression and Uncut writer Deusner is as obsessed with the duality of the south as he is with songs written by Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. His words on their words and music will wow you with an attention to detail only an acolyte can provide. Starting in Muscle Shoals and weaving through Memphis, Richmond, McNairy County and more, Deusner's remarkable writing lifts the veil on the South and his insights, intuition and imagination help deconstruct one of America's most powerful myths. "It had been nearly a decade since Patterson head left the Shoals, yet he remained tethered to the place, connected to its legacy and finally in a position where he could put his hometown on the map," the author writes as his favourite subjects swim the mainstream whilst attempting to manage and cross the inevitable bridges built as they leave their old lives behind. It's not that simple and the book's strength lies in how the author manipulates the multi-layered story still being written as he wrote. Yeah, this is a wonderful read if you love Americana and indie rock music and musicians, but it's a timely exploration of the cultural and political stories that have dominated the music of Drive-By Truckers and the emotional geography that surrounds the band and their communities. "In crucial ways, the Truckers have provided a rip-roaring soundtrack for a very personal reckoning with my own Southern roots," Deusner writes. His greatest triumph here is the one all art craves: getting your audience to care about your obsessions. You might put this book down and go listen to DBT immediately... or you may keep it on your lap as you ponder where you come from and what that might mean.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to have a good look around the site whilst you're here... Al x