POP GEOLOGY: Driving Dixie Down

(using Spotify to delve into a cross-section of rock)

"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", or as real southerners Black Crowes have it, "The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down", is a curious song. It's clearly written from a Confederate point of view, invokes the term Yankee with a great deal of scorn, doesn't mention slavery. Joan Baez, being a civil rights veteran, would never fly the stars 'n' bars, I don't think, yet she'll do a jaunty version as an encore, as will Charlie Daniels, who's an old right-wing warhorse. At least two black performers have sung that Virgil Caine is their name. Clearly there is some sort of quality here beyond good songwriting or literary distance that makes it so transcendent. Maybe it's the fact that four Canadians signed off on songwriter Levon Helm's sentiments.

1. Joan Baez -- As always, the vibrato is on every note (God, that gets annoying), but the emotional context isn't. Sounds like a obligatory novelty number.

2. Black Crowes -- Now we're talking -- not just southerners but brothers, just like in the song. Nearly as seminal as the original Band version. Can't get much better than this. A slow smoldering pressure-cooker of a version, well-phrased Hammond solo.

3. John Denver -- Folkie-earnest. Not bad, certainly not wimpy. He gets worked up nearly into a frenzy about his Richmond-issued banknotes being no good, which is kinda cool. "Summer", not "winter of 1965"? Odd change, but I guess they were hungry then, too. Sounds like he has a chip on his shoulder about the Union.

4. Johnny Cash -- A well-known version. Nice instrumental flourishes here and there, but do they serve the song? It's the night they sang at the Grand Ole Opry here, not a night of razing and pillaging.

5. Sophie B. Hawkins -- Neat stuff -- experimental, funny, surprising -- no guitars, just great double-tracked piano tone, with the bells really ringin'.

6. Charlie Daniels Band -- Hard to argue with these Southerners, too, but perhaps a little too perfunctory and if it's "Virgil" singing, he should sing the whole song instead of trading off verses. This isn't "The Weight", boys.

7. Merl Saunders -- sounds like a largely instrumental rehearsal outtake. A late 30-something Jerry Garcia pops in after some Persian to sing the only verse ("back with my wife in Tennessee") then fades back into the mix. Shimmering Hammond from Merl ever-present.

8. Solomon Burke -- The disconnect between a soul pioneer (clad in African garb on the cover of the 1970s era album) lamenting how Stoneman's cavalry keeps tearing up the tracks ("again and again, y'all") takes some getting used to in this danceable uptempo version.