Drive-By TruckersSouthern Rock Opera

Three guitars, crunchy distorted riffs and twin-lead solos barreling down a smoky highway, raspy vocals telling stories between the roar. This 2001 double album wrestles with what Patterson Hood calls "the duality of the Southern thing" — pride and shame, rock and roll and George Wallace. "Ronnie and Neil" reframes the Skynyrd-versus-Neil-Young feud as mutual respect, "Let There Be Rock" name-checks the bands that raised him, and "Angels and Fuselage" straps you into the doomed 1977 Skynyrd plane as it goes down in a long droning haze. The record where they became one of America's great rock bands.