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Hernando’s Slideaway
Sunday, July 13, 2008
The North Mississippi All Stars’ New Album Rocks. By Brian Wise
One of the most pleasant surprises of my recent trip to America was a gig at Proud Larry’s in Oxford, Mississippi. It’s a small pub catering mainly to the college population of this famous university town. Luckily, my visit coincided with a visit from the Hill Country Revue – a collection of musicians that included all three members of the North Mississippi Allstars: Luther Dickinson on guitar, his brother Cody Dickinson on drums and Chris Chew on bass.
Added to these were guitarists Garry Burnside, Duwayne Burnside and Kirk Smithart along with vocalist/harmonica player Daniel Coburn. Then there were special guests such as guitarist Kenny Brown (who played with RL Burnside) taking the stage at various times during an awesome two and a half hour show. Jimbo Mathus, producer and former member of the Squirrel Nut Zippers (back together apparently), wandered around, dancing and encouraging the band. The music ebbed and flowed but never stopped, conjuring up memories of the legacies of RL and Junior Kimbrough.
Luther had just returned from his Australian tour with the Black Crowes and seemed to be revelling in the freedom of this fluid collective. He watched from the sidelines for a while before taking centre stage and later, when Chris took a break halfway through the show, he took over bass for a few numbers.
When Luther takes a solo his playing is so eloquent that he often seems to be able to conjure up the spirit of Duane Allman. To get up close in the confines of a small club and see him improvise was a special treat, especially as I’d just been able to enjoy Mum’s Matty’s Meatloaf at the Ajax Diner just around the corner on the town square. The perfect evening!
“Every guitar player in Mississippi was there that night,” laughs Luther down the phone line when I remind him of the gig.
It seemed to me at the time that this was the future of the blues – at least as far as it relates to young audiences.
“We can’t help but play the music youthfully,” he responds. “It’s not like old-timey blues when we play it, it’s got more rock ‘n’ roll in it. But I think that’s part of the appeal. It’s just like the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin back in the day – they turned all those people on to all that great music.”
Amazingly, there were only about 50 people there to witness the gig, one of whom enquired in a slightly inebriated manner if I was a ‘Professor of The Blues.’ (The town is home to the famous University Of Mississippi (Ole Miss) but I wasn’t wearing my hounds-tooth jacket or smoking a pipe!) Here is a band that has played to tens of thousands at Bonnaroo and other festivals and it was like having our own private party with them. Afterwards, audience and band members mingled, chatted and shared a few drinks.
“To be honest, the Hill Country Revue is an extension of the North Mississippi Allstars,” explains Luther, “but it’s more a realisation of the original concept. When we started the Allstars it was supposed to be a loose collective of musicians from home but over the years it narrowed down and became more focused into Cody, Chris and I. We were mainly doing original material and the three of us ended up doing all the work together and that was the core unit of the band.
“But when I started working with the Black Crowes, Cody put the Hill Country Revue together which included as many people from home that are wiling to participate. I was so proud of him for doing that. He’s keeping the boogie alive, he’s keeping the dream going and he’s working with a lot of the cats from home that we ended up not working with as much as we wanted to. And it’s perfect for me because whenever I’m home I can just step right in and play with those guys.”
I mention to Luther that singer Daniel Coburn reminds me of a young Eric Burdon, though his voice is several shades lower.
“Yeah, I’m hip!” shouts Luther enthusiastically. “You’re right man. That’s really cool. It’s really fun and, for me personally, it’s such a joy because I don’t have to write all the songs, I don’t have to write the set list, I don’t have to do all the singing. I love it!”
While the Hill Country Revue is a project that can live with or without Luther Dickinson, the North Mississippi Allstars is definitely dependent on him to make up the power trio. Can you imagine Cream without Clapton or The Experience without Hendrix?
Not long before this mighty gig, the North Mississippi Allstars had released their latest album, Hernando, named after their hometown which is not far from Clarksdale, Oxford and Holly Springs. So the evening was punctuated by some songs from that album, the material that also appears on the Hill Country Revue recordings and some well-chosen covers.
“I think it’s because the record was so focused on the three of us and that’s what we have in common, our hometown,” responds Luther when I ask him about the album’s title. “A lot of the music we wrote together and it just felt real solid and real centred. When the idea came up to call it Hernando I just thought it was perfect. It’s kind of a non-sequitur in a way but I thought it was appropriate at the time.”
“As much travelling as we’ve done,” he continues, “I have no desire to leave home. When I am home I want to be at home with my friends and family. I think so much of our music is rooted in our home we’d be damn fools to move away.”
Hernando, is the band’s fifth studio album and the first for their recently launched label Songs of the South. The album continues in the vein of previous recordings – raw, energetic, blues-rock in the mode that has become associated with that area of Mississippi. The album features mainly original songs but there are contributions from Jimbo Mathus (‘Shake’) and a version of Champion Jack Dupree’s ‘I’d Love To Be A Hippy’ (sung by Chew). There’s a co-write with Memphis guitarist Steve Selvidge (son of Sid) and Ed Finney’s ‘Long Way From Home’ with East Memphis Slim on piano. It is probably the most focused of all the NMA albums.
The album is produced by the patriarch of the Dickinson clan - Jim Dickinson - whose production with Big Star and the Replacements as well as session work playing with Aretha Franklin and the Rolling Stones (on Sticky Fingers), amongst others, is legendary.
A few weeks later I was at Jim’s Zebra Ranch Studios, where the album was made, chatting to him about his history (for a forthcoming feature) and getting an idea of just how organic the production process is. There is nothing fancy about the studio and that no-nonsense attitude translates onto the album, which has about as natural a sound you could want for a blues recording.
“The older we get the better we work together,” says Luther of the relationship he and Cody have with their father. “It’s a real enjoyment. It was harder when we were younger and we were still learning and we were more stubborn. The older we get the better we all work together and it’s really a joy.”
I ask whether the brothers have come to appreciate the sort of things that Jim was doing early in his career, playing with the Stones and Aretha and in his own legendary band Mud Boy & The Neutrons.
“Oh man, I’ve always appreciated Mud Boy and The Neutrons,” he answers. “Mud Boy is the reason I play music! Growing up with my father and his friends, going to shows and hanging out with those guys. That’s why I always wanted to play music – watching them. We were really blessed. They were really close to Furry Lewis and Bukka White, Sleepy John Estes, Fred McDowell. I didn’t get to know those guys but my parents did and their friends did so we learned and grew up listening to a lot of Furry Lewis and Sleepy John.”
Luther says that Hernando’s predecessor, Electric Blue Watermelon in 2005, was a nod to the Hill Country sound but that prior to the latest album he had been listening to ‘early ZZ Top, early Black Sabbath, early AC/DC, some Led Zeppelin thrown in, Hendrix.’ Those are some heavy influences and he has admitted that he wanted to get back to the band’s blues-rock roots.
“They all feel natural at the time,” says Luther of the band’s previous albums, “because that’s what you’re working on and that’s what you write. But in retrospect it’s funny to look back at all of them.”
“Oh man, I love Champion Jack,” responds Luther when I ask him about the version of ‘I’d Love To Be A Hippie.’ “I have been listening to him for as long as I can remember but that song came from my Dad. He had heard that song and wrote some additional lyrics and he used to sing it and he always wanted Chris to record it. We tried to get him to do so over the years but this was the perfect time to do it.”
“The older we get I find the better it is the more focused the Allstars stay,” says Luther of the latest album. “You can throw in a couple of pretty songs but I think our strength is just that kind of blues rock thing. I think Hernando is our most focused record in a long time. We definitely experimented in the past but I think it’s better to have different outlets for other types of music, as oppose to stretching one band in too many different directions.”
Hernando is released on Songs of The South through Shock.
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