Wes Freed, Visual Artist Who Designed Drive-By Truckers' Albums, Dead at 58

[KG]

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/wes-freed-drive-by-truckers-dead-obit-1234586844/

The Richmond, Virginia-based Freed, who attended art school at Virginia Commonwealth University, began collaborating with Drive-By Truckers on 2001’s Southern Rock Opera, the group’s ambitious double album inspired by the 1977 Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash. Working with a mix of marker, watercolor, and acrylic paint — usually on wood — Freed went on to design the album art for the next seven Truckers albums, including 2004’s The Dirty South, which Freed told writer Matt Wake was his favorite cover in a 2019 interview. As Wake expertly put it then: “Freed’s art looks just like Truckers music sounds.”

[ret5hd]

1. Beautiful album covers:

(and meaningful songs within those albums)

[blm]

2. Art Rosenbaum passed away yesterday, too. Beloved artist, musician UGA

Michael Stipe sat for the last piece Art painted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Rosenbaum

He and Wes are being mourned by other southern artists and musicians. Kinda shell-shocked.

[Docreed2003]

3. His work, while not limited to, certainly is synonymous with the DBT

Hope he's flying amongst the cooleybirds...