New North Mississippi Allstars album!
DBartblue
effort, 51 Phantom, will be in stores on October 9, 2001.
"Hard-core blues scholarship, hard-core rock attitude." - Newsweek
Stop by www.51phantom.com now to hear sound clips, download an mp3 and
pre-order your copy of the new album on sale from the Tone-Cool online store
for $12.98. Order before October 9th and receive an autographed copy from the
band!
51 Phantom. 11 tracks, nine originals, one unique sound. The new album in
stores October 9th. Produced by Jim Dickinson.
Be sure to catch the Allstars on their upcoming tour and look for dates in
October-December to be added soon. Stop by www.nmallstars.com for more
information, tour dates, chats, etc.
Upcoming tour dates:
9/6/01 10:15 PM Dave's on Dickson Fayetteville AR
9/7/01 9:00 P.M. Greater Ozarks Blues Festival Springfield
MO Outdoor Stage
9/8/01 10:30 PM NBC Birthday Blast Birmingham AL
9/13/01 7:30 PM Carolyn Blount Theater Montgomery
AL
9/14/01 10:00 PM Proud Larry's Oxford MS
9/15/01 10:00 PM Proud Larry's Oxford MS
9/21/01 10:00 PM Terrapin Hill Farm Harrodsburg KY
9/22/01 12:00 PM Deerfields Hendersonville NC
9/27/01 8:00 P.M. Mid South Fair Memphis TN
9/28/01 4 PM & 8 PM University of Southern Mississippi
Hattiesburg MS
9/29/01 Soul Kitchen Mobile AL
North Mississippi Allstars
51 Phantom
North Mississippi Allstars frontman Luther Dickinson says, "When young white
kids play black music, whether it's Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones or the
Beastie Boys, it turns into rock 'n' roll. That's what rock 'n' roll is."
Rock 'n' roll positively drips, shimmies and explodes from the grooves of 51
PHANTOM (Tone-Cool), the Allstars' eagerly anticipated sophomore effort.
Whereas the band's self-produced debut, "Shake Hands With Shorty", delivered
jam-happy, primitive modern boogie via standards by Mississippi Fred McDowell,
R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, 51 PHANTOM is a taut selection of original
compositions. The one and only Jim Dickinson -- producer extraordinaire and
father to both Luther and his drummer brother Cody -- supervised its recording.
"We've worked together through the years, but we've never done a full record,"
Luther says. "It was really a dream come true."
It's also the completion of a musical circle, one that began when Luther and
Cody were still in single digits. Musicians before they could even ride a bike,
the boys were raised on roots music, the sound of post-Stax Memphis and blues
as natural and as necessary a part of life as air or water. But as late '80s
teens who loved hardcore and Van Halen, the brothers went their own way,
crunching out Memphis punk in the trio DDT and backing fusion guitarist Shawn
Lane.
Eventually, around 1994, Luther, who's now 28, began looking homeward musically
and philosophically. Fat Possum Records was rekindling interest in the music of
R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion served as a
reminder that blues and punk were hardly polar opposites. The two brothers
found themselves reconnecting with dad's classic work in Mud Boy and the
Neutrons as well as with Ry Cooder and Jim Keltner. Luther also began a
friendship and collaboration with fife-and-drum master Otha Turner.
"Otha's really my closest friend in the hill country," Luther says. "He's 92,
he still farms by hand and still plays the cane fife. Last time I talked to him
he was bragging about his new driver's license. He's a connoisseur of women,
moonshine and blues music."
"There's something about the hill country style that I just love," Luther
continues. "Like R.L. says, 'it ain't nothing but dance music.' It's very
trancelike, with long songs droning in one key. There's not a lot of chord
changes, so it just flattens out into an even groove, real melodic and
rhythmic. I dunno man, it just appealed to me more and more. It makes you want
to boogie."
From this (re-) discovery, the Allstars were born. The Dickinsons' high school
buddy Chris Chew, raised on the music of the Southern Baptist church, joined up
on bass. The band then spent two years working it live, including twice-a-week,
four hour shows on Beale Street in Memphis, sometimes for packed houses,
sometimes for just the bartender.
"Shake Hands with Shorty" was the band's personal stamp on a regional sound.
"We wanted to represent what we do live," Luther says. "It was all based on the
hill country tradition, taking a simple, primitive song and stretching it
around. A lot of quote unquote blues bands take in rock influences, but keep a
specific contemporary blues sound. We take a different slant. It's blues lyrics
and blues melody with a rock band. Our sound is a combination of the blues,
gospel and traditional psychedelic rock'n'roll, but if you took us down to just
one guitar and a voice, it would be total hill country blues."
Indeed, the debut record included raucous, drawn-out versions of "Shake 'Em On
Down", "Po' Black Maddie" and other songs that every musician in Mississippi
knows by heart. But no one plays 'em quite like the Allstars. "That's because
they rock," Jim Dickinson says. "And that's pure and simple because of Cody. He
rocks and he swings. Most young drummers don't swing. And Luther still plays
guitar like he listened to Black Flag and Pat Martino at the same time, which
he actually used to do, which blows my mind."
The Allstars' extended workouts inspired comparisons to the Allman Brothers
Band, the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Phish and Cream. Luther acknowledges
some influences more than others, but explains why there's an additional reason
for such resemblances. "A lot of people who are influenced by Led Zeppelin or
Cream or the Allman Brothers, their stuff turns out sounding more modern. The
difference is that we're influenced by the same people those original bands
were."
While critics drooled over "Shake Hands with Shorty", the band returned to the
road. In the year 2000 they racked up 191 shows and a full turn of the odometer
on the group's warhorse van Dirty Red. For awhile, day jobs and recording
sessions were squeezed around the gig; some Saturdays, they'd drive all night
from Atlanta or Chicago so Chew could get home in time for Sunday morning
services.
"That dichotomy of the church and the blues is still alive," Luther says. "What
Chris says is: 'it's all the ministry.' People get the feeling from the music.
You're putting out positive energy."
"It's Chew that makes the rhythms come together, with that walking gospel
bass," Jim Dickinson says. "Plus he gets it -- he understands that just by
walking on the stage they make a statement. The physicality, the interracial
picture, even the way they point their instruments towards Cody."
During their time on the road, the band collaborated with the likes of
Widespread Panic's John Hermann, Lucinda Williams and Jon Spencer. They even
stopped by the Grammy Awards, as "Shorty" was nominated for Best Contemporary
Blues Recording, and then found time to form the "gospel supergroup" The Word
with John Medeski and "Sacred Steel" pedal steeler Robert Randolph. Cody spent
a day in London watching Oasis in the studio. And, at the Reading Festival,
Luther did another aesthetic 360 -- having been steeped in roots and classic
rock for the last half-decade when he found himself hearing bands like Rage
Against the Machine, Primal Scream and "even Limp Bizkit" with a fresh pair of
ears. That might be one reason why, he says, "I rediscovered distortion on 51
PHANTOM."
It's important to note that alongside producer Papa Dickinson was mixer John
Hampton. This is essentially the same team that helped create the Replacements'
classic Pleased to Meet Me. Luther still treasures the demos he has from that
time, as well as his teenage guitar solo on "Shooting Dirty Pool." ("Paul and I
had our finger-tapping whammy bar antics," he remembers.)
Working with their father, the boys knew spontaneity would be the watchword.
"He doesn't even like to cut songs that have been excessively road tested,"
Luther says. "Lord Have Mercy" is a completely live first take. The ZZ Top-ish
snarl of "Snakes in My Bushes" was "first take, second time we tried to record
it" (or "first take, six weeks later" Jim Dickinson says). Same thing for the
title track, a sweaty, sinister chug-along anthem inspired by a disembodied,
elderly blues voice Luther heard coming from the woods while driving down the
highway one night. "Storm" is an old song Luther and Cody have played together
for years, but the version on 51 PHANTOM is the first time the Allstars ever
played it. Ditto the spectacularly slinky call-and-response "When the Ship
Comes In," which Luther and Chew wrote on the road.
As gritty and grooving as the record is, it's definitely a studio project, a
more concise and focused set that allows the band's evolving sound and nascent
songwriting to shine, whereas the last record was more about letting loose on
lengthy classics. "What people said were the strengths of the first record
would be the weakness of the second I suppose," Luther says. "But I think
people will be glad we switched up. I just wanted to try and make a classic
rock record, where it's a little journey."
His personal favorite songs are "Leavin'" and "Up Over Yonder", two ballads --
the former sweet and soulful, the latter shuffling and plaintive -- that usher
the record to its final track: "Mud". This song is a statement of spiritual and
aesthetic affirmation that Cody recorded in his bedroom (augmented by barking
dogs, recorded by Jim Dickinson when Cody was a baby and Luther was just four).
It serves as a primal reminder that no matter how often they tour the world,
experiment with modern sounds or charm big-city audiences, the Allstars will
never lose touch with North Mississippi.
"No," Luther says, "It's never gonna be the 'sophisticated Allstars.' We're
dirty South all the way."
********************
PRODUCER'S NOTES
The Dixie Flyers. "Wild Horses." Big Star's Third. Mud Boy and the Neutrons. Ry
Cooder and Jim Keltner. The Replacements. Green on Red. Primal Scream. Jim
Dickinson has had his hands in so many chapters of blues, R&B and rock history
that, Luther Dickinson jokes, "his name is now 'The Legendary Jim Dickinson'."
In 45 years of playing and recording, no project has given the elder Dickinson
more pleasure than working with first-born Luther, younger son Cody and their
long-time friend Chris Chew in the North Mississippi Allstars. Jim worked as a
musician on "Shake Hands With Shorty", but that was the extent of his
involvement. "I wouldn't even listen to playback," he says. "One of the hardest
things I ever did was stay away, but they had to make the first record
themselves."
Dad wasn't so sure he should make the second either. "I tried real hard not to
do it. I gave them a list of other producers. But as it turns out, I don't
think anybody else could have gotten the record I got. This one reflects their
ability to play in the studio more."
From his vantage point as father, producer and musical historian, here are some
of Dickinson's other insights into the North Mississippi Allstars and 51
PHANTOM:
· Between Cody and Luther there's a big difference and getting 'em to
merge the visions isn't easy for them or anybody else. They would have beaten
the crap out of any other producer who tried. Cody likes pop music and Luther's
taste is more esoteric, but tha's what makes gumbo, putting together things
that don't entirely fit.
· The thing they do that's amazing, I don't think they're even aware of
it, is the sibling thing. They think together. I used to hear 'em play when
they were literally just making noise, when they were babies, but they'd be
making noise together. That in itself is music. That's playing.
· They gave me a second career, in terms of rejuvenating the fading
spirit of my own musical interests. Luther exposed me to Black Flag and JFA and
the early skate punk stuff. At first I thought it was terrible. Then I remember
walking around the house and hearing the groove and I thought, my god, I'm
listening to Black Flag and I'm hearing the groove!
· To see 'em playing roots music is something that I never expected.
It's like a miracle to me. And to see it as a reflection of the work I did with
Ry Cooder and Jim Keltner, it's undeniable. I knew they were listening to those
tapes but I had no idea they knew how to play like that. That's the difference
between my boys and their musical peers. My boys can sit down with anybody and
play. And they both read music, which I can't do.
· The idea is primitive modernism. It's not supposed to be primitive
music, it's not supposed to be modern music, it's supposed to be two things at
once. Cody will play an Otha Turner drum pattern, which they achieve with five
drums and he's doing by himself, and yet he does it with a contemporary feel.
· The only thing I could possibly pass on was this. It's kind of a curse
and a blessing, God help 'em. When I see them playing for an audience it really
makes it all worthwhile. In a time when everything is so homogenized, even if
they weren't called the North Mississippi Allstars, I don't think there would
be any doubt where they were from.