Dierks' discouragement became devotion. He studied country music like it was his own private graduate school. A job at The Nashville Network allowed him watch historic performances from the 40s to the 80s. He filled three-ring binders with hundreds of classic and obscure songs, hand-transcribed with careful attention to phrasing, pronunciation and immortal words by the likes of Willie Nelson, Harlan Howard and Mel Tillis. He set a goal of playing the famed Bluebird Cafe before his 23rd birthday and made it with a couple weeks to spare. He formed bands and graduated from dive bars, to brew pubs, to honky tonks to the Station Inn itself. He didn't go to industry functions and chase producers. Instead he proved what he could do by cutting his own album with a team of sidemen hand-picked from the rocking Jamie Hartford Band and bluegrass icons the Del McCoury Band. His sound, a blend of traditional, bluegrass and modern country worked with young audiences. Capitol Nashville saw someone rooted yet independent in Dierks and offered him a record deal.
The best way to keep your independence in the music business is to score a quick hit, and Dierks pulled that off when his debut single What Was I Thinkin' went No. 1. Two more hit singles followed, along with a CMT Flameworthy Award for breakout video, a CMA nomination and the ACM's top new artist prize. Beyond the album success, Dierks carried the hard-working ethic he's shown on Lower Broadway to his touring. He lobbied to play in venues that had never had country music and in venues that had made country music history. He paired up with Ragweed for the "High Times and Hangovers Tour," a 35-city run that lived up to its name. Every night, Dierks and company followed the Oklahoma-based band's famously high-energy shows with rock-hard country music and plenty of space for the band to stretch out and play for jam-friendly audiences. He turned down glamour photo shoots designed to fluff and buff him. But he did pose with his beloved dog Jake, who has emerged as the mascot of the whole Dierks Bentley bandwagon.
The road was so all-consuming that scheduling a second album required a carefully guarded ten-day stop, during which Dierks slept in the studio. It was not the time for experiments. Rather it was time to make simple country music with the trusted and proven team that made his first record successful. One important thing did change on his so-called sophomore album (remember he made a fine disc on his own), the songwriting and singing both got better.
The first song and first single, Lot of Leavin' Left To Do, jolts out of blocks with a Bakersfield hot-coil twang and settles into a brisk, road-worthy groove reminiscent of Hillbilly Rock-era Marty Stuart. Cab of my Truck seems to offer a picture of an automotive hangover after the night in question in What Was I Thinkin'. At least two songs, Domestic, Light and Cold and So So Long tap the honky-tonk tradition with uptempo groove and clever wordplay.
While Dierks and long-time collaborator Brett Beavers wrote most of the album, three cover tunes demonstrate Bentley's eye for great songs. Jamie Hartford's Good Things Happen casts as peaceful a spell as Dierks' own I Wish It Would Break did from the debut, and Alison Krauss sings harmony vocal for extra sweetness. The title cut, Modern Day Drifter, by John Scott Sherrill and Wyatt Easterling, has the makings of a timeless study in rootlessness. And as before, the Del McCoury Band appear in a pure dose of bluegrass near the end, here a tune by Del himself called Good Man Like Me.
Perhaps the song that best points toward the career longevity any respectable artist seeks is the final cut, Gonna Get There Someday, a fiddle-driven tear-jerker that earns every one of its chill bumps. The narrator sings of his lonesomeness to a departed woman, but who she is may surprise you. It's an emotional cap to an album that will speak to both fans of the legends of country and the new, young fans Bentley has made it his mission to recruit into the fold.
Dierks still has the binders full of songs he assembled when he was taking self-taught classes in Country Music 101. They're battered and falling apart, but they still come out for jam sessions on the bus and band sound checks, where Dierks likes to do a different song every time. They're a tangible symbol of a lifelong commitment to the legacy of country and the serious business of being an artist in charge of his choices, his band and his destiny. "I feel like I'm the same dude who used to carry his own PA system, go set up, make the phone calls and put bands together downtown," Dierks says. "From day one, it's been the same attitude from Lower Broadway, not worrying about money, just trying to build up fans one handshake and one beer at a time."