Review: Mike Cooley at The Grey Eagle

Sometimes, a solo appearance or side project from the member of an iconic band can come across as mere curiosity – a consolation prize for when the full band isn’t an option.

Mike Cooley’s show at the Grey Eagle on Dec. 9 was not one of those times.

Over the course of 24 songs, the Drive-By Truckers co-founder delivered a remarkable performance showcasing both his songwriting prowess and his ability to hold down an evening with just an acoustic guitar and his baritone drawl. At no point in the show did his near flawless performance feel like slim pickings, and I never felt like I was missing the wide open throttle of DBT (and I love DBT).

Cooley’s contributions to the Truckers are indisputable — songs like “Marry Me,” “Women Without Whisky,” and “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac,” are anchors in the band’s catalog. But Cooley’s Southern slice-of-life, expertly wrought character studies heard through a dressed-down acoustic format allowed for a closer examination and deeper dive into the stories he tells.

Instead of the vocal gravel and grit he employs to rise above DBT’s thunder, his voice came out clean and low, like he was just settling in to relay the stories he has had in his pocket for decades. His reworked fingerpicked acoustic arrangements, aided by — but never overutilizing —a loop pedal, sounded gorgeous, especially with the Grey Eagle handling the sound.

The result was a truly intimate encounter with Cooly’s storytelling, and the transformation gave songs like the anthemic “Surrender Under Protest” from 2016’s American Band new and different shapes. A perfect example is “Devil Won’t Stay,” a barn burner from 2004’s The Dirty South and a personal favorite that, when wrangled into an acoustic version, managed to sound even more dire and urgent while raising a few goosebumps.

That’s not to say the fire in the furnace of Cooley’s writing wasn’t ever present. From the opening song, “Maria’s Awful Disclosure,” from DBT’s latest, 2022’s Welcome 2 Club XIII, Cooley sang of his disdain for bullshit misinformation and political manipulation with the lyrics “Professional victims with recycled lies/Stoking satanic panic.” And the lines “Say what you gotta say to shut their bibles and their mouths/If they was to tie a noose, they'd have to lay their bibles down,” from 2004’s “Cottonseed” drew some whoops from the crowd.

In all, Cooley would visit songs from almost all of DBT’s 14-album, 24-year run, including deeper cuts like “Panties in Your Purse” from the band’s 1998 debut Gangstabilly, and the country-to-its-core “Love Like This” from 1999’s Pizza Deliverance.

Cooley’s songs are populated by the downtrodden, the poor, the addicted, the abused, and the outcasts, which, let’s face it, are prime fodder for country songs. But Cooley doesn’t wink or exploit. He writes and sings from a place that delivers heart and empathy to those that live in the margins. His songs don’t strive for fancy twists or even resolution. They just capture the moment and, along the way, truly find humanity and empathy. And the solo acoustic delivery truly did right by those testimonials. 

(Photos by Micah Rogers)