Sportswriter Wright Thompson on DBT and the Dead: “Live Music Is My Medicine”
Wright Thompson talks about what Taylor Swift has in common with the Grateful Dead and what it means to be an active citizen of the South.
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When Bob Weir died on January 10, the Deadheads among Drive-By Truckers fans made ourselves known. Within the intersection of our sonic Venn diagram sits Wright Thompson, a senior writer for ESPN and author of three New York Times bestsellers. Wright counts Jason Isbell and Drive-By Truckers among his favorite musicians, but “I am first and foremost a serious, addled Deadhead,” he says. He estimates he went to 18 Dead and Co. shows at The Sphere.
In cosmic timing, I spoke with Wright four days before Bob died. The writer had just landed in San Francisco, birthplace of the Grateful Dead. Like touring bands, sportswriters spend a lot of time on the road, but Wright — who grew up in Clarksdale, MS, and lives in Oxford — has spent much of his career chronicling the South.
His 2024 book, The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi, was hands down the best thing I read last year. The Barn changed my perspective on the murder of Emmett Till and the entire history of Mississippi; it should be required reading for Southerners. He’s also executive producer of TrueSouth, a food and culture documentary series hosted by John T. Edge.
I suspected he might be a DBT fan when I saw the title of his 2019 book, The Cost of These Dreams: Sports Stories and Other Serious Business, which borrows a phrase from the Patterson Hood song “Angels and Fuselage.”
“I’ve been a fan for a very long time,” Wright says. “That line and that song stuck with me. I loved that line before there was even going to be a book.”
A self-described “professional enthusiast,” Wright says that music played an essential role in shaping who he became. Keep reading for our full conversation about how sports fandom differs from band fandom, what Taylor Swift has in common with the Grateful Dead, and what Wright says it means to be “active citizens of the South.”