North Mississippi Allstars
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The Allstars' Conan O'Brien taping is re-airing on November 14th. If you missed
it first time around here's your chance to tape it and show it to all of your
friends.
Billboard Magazine's feature on the band came out this week. The article is
attached below (after the tour dates).
The House of Blues radio hour with Dan Ackroyd is also re-airing it's interview
with the Allstars this weekend. Check your local stations to see when they will
broadcast it.
The new single "Drop Down Mama," went to radio this week. Be sure to call your
favorite station and request the song.
Upcoming tour dates:
11/3/00 9:30 pm Skipper's Smokehouse Tampa FL
11/4/00 6:30 pm Sound Advice Blues Festival Ft. Lauderdale FL
11/7/00 Pressure Point Brighton UK
11/8/00 Uni Leeds UK
11/9/00 Flapper & Firkin Birmingham UK
11/10/00 Cactus Bruges Belgium
11/11/00 Milky Amsterdam Netherlands
11/12/00 Surrey Uni Guildford UK
11/13/00 Roadhouse Manchester UK
11/14/00 13th Note Glasgow UK
11/15/00 LA2 London UK
11/16/00 Uni Warwick UK
11/18/00 Bluestock/New Daisy Theatre Memphis TN
11/18/00 New Daisy Theatre Memphis TN Bluestock
11/24/00 7:30 PM Mid-south Coliseum Memphis TN w/Widespread Panic
11/25/00 7:30 PM Mid-South Coliseum Memphis TN w/Widespread Panic
12/14/00 Patio Indianapolis IN
12/15/00 Double Door Chicago IL
12/16/00 Luther Blues Madison WI
12/17/00 400 Bar Minneapolis MN
12/20/00 George Street Grocery Vicksburgh MS
12/21/00 George Street Grocery Vicksburgh MS
12/31/00 9:00 PM Variety Playhouse Atlanta GA
Here's the Billboard article -
Billboard
November 4, 2000
Fans Root for North Mississippi Allstars
Tone-Cool's 'Hill Country Blues' Trio Carries on Musical Lineage
By Jim Bessman
New York - Thanks to heavy touring, key media exposure, and a fresh take on a
time-honored sound, the North Mississippi Allstars are steadily developing into
one of the surprise stories of the year.
The Northern Mississippi trio, whose debut release album "Shake Hands with
Shorty" came out on May 9 on Tone-Cool Records, got a big lift this summer with
a two-page Time Magazine spread, as well as an appearance on "Late Night with
Conan O'Brien." But three years of intensive roadwork with bands like Galactic
and Gov't Mule have already endeared the young Mississippi "hill country" blues
trio to the jam band generation.
"They're certainly appealing to that crowd," says Tone-Cool VP Dave Bartlett.
"But they're also playing to music fans in general. Our initial goal was to
reach those fans of the Allman Brothers, Hendrix and Cream, all the way to Jon
Spencer, and one of our key selling points has been the press - which we knew
would be there."
Aside from the music, which on "Shake Hands with Shorty" is made up entirely of
covers of classic North Mississippi hill country blues like "Shake 'em on Down"
(the Mississippi Fred McDowell song that is the album's first radio single),
Tone-Cool knew that music journalists would pick up on the Allstars' personal
as well as regional heritage.
The group's founders, guitarist Luther Dickinson and drummer Cody Dickinson,
are sons of the legendary Memphis roots/rock producer/sideman Jim Dickinson.
Besides the influences of hill-country bluesmen like McDowell, Junior
Kimbrough, and RL Burnside, they were inspired by their father and his many
clients, including Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and the Replacements.
The Time article, notes Coalition of Independent Music Stores president Don Van
Cleave did wonders. "We circulated it around, and it really helped," he says,
also citing the band's touring. "It's the kind of roots story and breath of
fresh air we need right now in this land of overhyped conglomerate output."
One market where the Allstars have delivered big live is Chicago, where
triple-A station WXRT recently promoted the group's appearance at the House of
Blues and at the station's summer concert series at the Lincoln Park Zoo, which
paired it with Steve Earle.
"It was a record-breaking crowd - [the show represented] the history of
American music," says WXRT programming VP Norm Winer. "They have the perfect
combination of the blues influence with the jamming sensibility - which is
absolutely what our audience wants to hear. Our music is idiosyncratic, and
it's certainly refreshing to find a band with such a unique mixture of
elements."
Chicago isn't the first town they've conquered. When the Dickinsons first hit
the road as a duo three years ago (they couldn't afford then to bring along
Allstars bassist Chris Chew), they did weekly residencies in Atlanta;
Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Ala.; Chapel Hill, NC; New Orleans; and Oxford,
Miss. "We did a whole summer on Beale Street in Memphis three years ago,
playing two nights a week for four months," says Luther Dickinson. "That's how
we met Tone-Cool, and with all the touring, we worked up a good grass-roots fan
base." They also landed opening gigs for the likes of Squirrel Nut Zippers;
Medeski, Martin and Wood; Gov't Mule; and Galactic.
But having heard "all the bad stories" about the music business, they shied
away from artist management until they decided to go with Mike's Artist
Management, the Tucson, Ariz.-based company of artist-turned-producer-manager
Mike Lembo, former manager of NRBQ and Jules Shear and current manager of Jim
Dickinson's production career.
Lembo brought in Big Hassle indie public-relations firm and assembled a team of
indie Triple-A and college radio promoters, including Planetary and Sean
Coakley. Hooking up in England with indie label Blanco y Negro/Warner Bros.,
Lembo matched Tone-Cool's U.S. "muscle" (via Island/Def Jam Music Group and
Universal Music Video Distribution), he says, and further plied the European
market with extensive festival bookings through Asgard.
Domestically, the Monterey Peninsula-booked band has been on the road nonstop
since "Shake Hands with Shorty's" release and is looking forward to increased
visibility from it's upcoming Farm Aid slot. "It's great," says Luther
Dickinson. "We're playing to younger audiences, the hippie jam/band crowd and
older people who grew up on the blues and the artists we were influenced by."
Tone-Cool has every intention of keeping the North Mississippi Allstars on the
road and is continuing to push "Shake 'em on Down" to radio. "We're going to
rock radio now and from there will roll out a second single based on how this
one does," says Bartlett. "We have a major program going with Best Buy and are
looking to break into other mainstream accounts.
But Lembo says that the group is just "finding its own audience and not playing
the chart game. All they care about is getting as many stations as they can and
playing as many cities as they can."