Guitar Man Upstairs (Live) – Mike Cooley (Drive By Truckers)

Happy Monday! Over the weekend I got to see the Drive By Truckers again, this time performing one of my favorite albums of all time, Southern Rock Opera, in its entirety at The Tabernacle. One of the lighter and fun songs off that album is “Guitar Man Upstairs.” I’ve seen it performed live twice, and in its original form, I would put it in “barn burner” territory, but for today’s post I decided to go with a much more mellow but still fun and fast rendition. The Truckers tend to split songwriting duties between Paterson Hood and Mike Cooley, with Hood bringing the idealistic punk rock edge and Cooley taking a much more grounded and semi-traditional southern rock and country musical approach.

Upon first listen to this version, and probably due to titles, my initial thought was “Wow, this sounds like a Jerry Reed tune”. Specifically, “Guitar Man“. I won’t talk too much about Jerry at the moment, but he’s one of my favorite guitar players and country artists of all time; I’ll probably feature at least one of his songs this week, as I’m long overdue. I’m sure Mike took some influence from Jerry on this one, and he really does that style of country music justice in a neotraditional way here. I’m actually going to see Mike play solo this Thursday at Eddie’s Attic, so I’m pretty pumped for that.

Mike’s solo album, The Fool On Every Corner, is a great listen if you’re a Truckers fan looking for some bonfire-style renditions of the Cooley side of the catalog. Another favorite of mine is the acoustic version of “Marry Me“.

Link to song – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MvcSn2iKY0&list=RD0MvcSn2iKY0&start_radio=1

Link to Guitar Man – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icIdtzvfP1w