Black Crowes, Robert Randolph & The Family Band, Drive-By Truckers

Let's talk about the South: It's where country music leapt into sweet miscegenation with the blues and had a kickin 'n' howlin' little brat called rock 'n' roll. Some 10 years later the Brits reprocessed it and sold it back to the next young Stateside generation. The Black Crowes stand astride all that--even taller and more confident since their time apart--like a triple bill of Stones/Faces/Skynyrd with guest singers Otis Redding and Rod Stewart (back before he was a hideous sell-out). But those're just reference points for a sound these Atlanta boys have, in time, perfected into a rollicking revue of the best of that Southern musical thang. In short, it's rock with both the roll and the soul by an act that's grown into great American band stature. Sacred steel jammer Robert Randolph and fellow Dixie rockers Drive-By Truckers add the sauce and sides to this barbecue.