Allstars still got the blues.Byline: Matt Cooper Matt Cooper may refer to:
Luther Dickinson Luther Dickinson is the lead guitarist and vocalist for the North Mississippi All Stars. He also hosts Guitar Xpress on the Video On Demand network: Mag Rack. Born in West Tennessee to Mary Lindsay and Jim Dickinson, a Memphis record producer. , like any kid who wanted to be a rock star, tuned in to MTV MTV in full Music Television U.S. cable television network, established in 1980 to present videos of musicians and singers performing new rock music. MTV won a wide following among rock-music fans worldwide and greatly affected the popular-music business. to see what was hot around the world. Little did he know that he would find a truly distinctive sound in his own backyard - or, to be more precise, swampland. Dickinson, who grew up in rural Mississippi just across the state line from Memphis, Tenn., is a frontman front·man n. 1. also front man A man who serves as a nominal leader but who lacks real authority. 2. Music A leading singer with a group. with the North Mississippi Allstars North Mississippi Allstars is a blues-rock/jam band band from Hernando, Mississippi founded in 1996. The band is composed of brothers Luther Dickinson (guitar, vocals) and Cody Dickinson (drums, keyboards), and Chris Chew (electric bass guitar). , a Southern blues- and roots-rock outfit that burst onto the scene in 1996. They play the WOW Hall on Saturday. The Allstars lay claim to smatterings of soul, hip-hop and funkified rhythms of aged bluesmen who play the smoky juke joints of the South. It's called the "hill country" sound, and it refers to music that thrives east of the Mississippi delta This article is about the geographic region of the U.S. state of Mississippi. For other uses, see Mississippi Delta (disambiguation). The Mississippi Delta is the distinct northwest section of the state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo - in the same country hills where the Allstars live. "When I got turned on to the hill country scene, it blew my mind," Dickinson said. "I couldn't believe that not only was there this great primitive funky modern country blues Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) refers to all the acoustic, guitar-driven forms of the blues. After blues' birth in the southern United States, it quickly spread throughout the country (and elsewhere), coming out of Mississippi, but it was right under my nose and I didn't even know about it." Dickinson formed the Allstars with his brother, Cody, and the two have an impressive musical pedigree. Their father, Memphis producer Jim Dickinson Jim Dickinson is an American record producer, pianist and singer. He was born James Luther Dickinson in Little Rock, Arkansas, November 15,1941, and moved to Memphis, Tennessee at an early age. , played piano on the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" and co-wrote "Across the Borderline," sung by the likes of Willie Nelson, Freddy Fender and Bob Dylan. Dickinson, who sat in with his sons for the latest album, "Hill Country Revue," has strengthened the family's working relationship and proven himself resourceful as his sons pursued their edgy sound. The elder Dickinson was on hand one day while the band was recording "Polaris," their third album, Luther recalled. "As we were trying to nail the guitar sound, he went wandering off and came back with this old amp, put it in front of us, and said, 'That's the Big Star sound, right there, boy.' We got the slide guitar for 'All Along' on the first take, and it was all smooth sailing from there." The group's latest, "Hill Country Revue," was taped live from a raucous show last June in Manchester, Tenn. That event brought together some of the musicians who influenced the Allstars, including R.L. Burnside, the southern blues legend whose son, Duwayne Burnside, has played with the Allstars from the outset. In a review, the Boston Herald wrote the Allstars "are aiming for nothing less than a new kind of Southern rock ... It's not just the ghostly Duane Allman homage/slide workouts on 'Black Maddie' and elsewhere that give 'Hill Country Revue' that flavor. It's more the way that the Dickinsons seem driven to merge old-school Southern rock, punk and jam-band excursions into a new yet instantly familiar hybrid grounded in jacked-up country blues." "We rocked like a La-Z-Boy recliner on the front porch of a backwoods doublewide dou·ble·wide n. Two mobile homes, each 24 feet in width, bolted together as a single unit and used as a permanent residence. dou ," Jim Dickinson said of that show. "This was a vision realized: A traveling dream-carnival of Southern culture and lifestyle evolved from the Memphis County blues festivals of the '60s (and) the punk/blues fusion of the '90s." CONCERT PREVIEW North Mississippi AllStars With: Dirty Dozen Brass Band The Dirty Dozen Brass Band is a New Orleans, Louisiana, brass band. The ensemble was established in 1977 by Benny Jones together with members of the Tornado Brass Band. The Dirty Dozen revolutionized the New Orleans brass band style by incorporating funk and bebop into the , The Rising Star Fife and Drum Band When: 9 p.m. Saturday Where: WOW Hall, 291 W. Eighth Ave. Tickets: $17; call 687-2746. |
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