The North Mississippi Allstars have just begun the initial leg of their 2011 tour campaign in support of Keys to the Kingdom, their first studio album since 2008. The vigorous work was inspired and produced in honor of the passing of their late father, legendary producer and musician, Jim Dickinson, featuring a dozen tracks of departure and despair. Still, there are few hints of that latter attribute as the overall arc of the piece seems to be more a celebratory ode to the passing of life, rather than remorseful—a fitting tribute to a man known as much for his deep soul as his lasting impact on the music scene.
Jambands.com sat down with guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Luther Dickinson en route to Colorado as the NMA trio headed into the western swing of their initial 2011 tour dates. Dickinson has been extraordinarily busy of late in between 2010 tours with the Black Crowes, his own band, and stints in New Orleans, his “second home,” with George Porter, Jr. and Johnny Vidacovich. Dickinson, like his late father, and his brother and band mate, Cody Dickinson, is an old school southern gentleman while being respectful yet honest in his continuing journey as one of the scene’s most inventive guitarists and songwriters. Never one to miss a courteous word or gesture, Dickinson is also well aware of the fine line between silence and communication and nuance and texture, as he chooses his words with candor, care, compassion, and, ultimately, friendliness.
RR: My father passed away a few years ago so I know how you feel to a certain degree. The new album, Keys to the Kingdom is centered on the memory of your father, Jim Dickinson, after his passing in 2009. I wanted to talk about the preparation and execution of the work on this album based on that poignant theme.
LD: Well, first off, I’m sorry to hear that, man. I’ve been meeting people on the road who have gone through the same thing, and I’m glad that it isn’t too personal to me, and that other people can relate, as well. Yeah, man, I mean, everyone —it’s the natural cycle of life. That’s the deal, you know? (laughter) Jesus…
But, I didn’t prepare. Fortunately, I was home a lot the summer of ’09 when he was ill. My wife was pregnant, and my dad was in the hospital for two or three months. It was just brutally real. It was the most intense life I’d ever experienced. I had plenty of time to prepare for the record. I wasn’t trying to write songs about the situation, but they just kept coming out. They came out so strong and quickly and powerfully, and I had never experienced anything like it. They just kept comin’.
I guess as a songwriter or as a musician, that’s how I deal. It was weird. Some of the songs just fell together, or I’d wake up and write the whole song first thing in the morning—not that I dreamed it; it was with me as I woke up. It was definitely the most satisfying songwriting cycle I had every been in, and the recording session was the same way. We cut all the music in six days; we did the whole record in two and a half to three weeks from top to bottom. We just kept it raw and honest. I also wanted it to sound as old-fashioned as possible. We used as few mikes as possible to try to get a real recording.
RR: I love how I can hear the sound of the room on the new record. I hear so little of that these days.
LD: Yeah, it’s a shame, man. (laughs) It’s a battle. Modern technology is alluring and seductive, but, man, you’ve got to keep it reined in.
RR: As I mentioned, you also managed to nail down a consistent theme throughout the record. There are so many themes of departure, whether it is the remorse over a lost one, or someone was being pushed away, or the longing to go somewhere else. Are the elements of wanderlust tied in with your life on the road, too?
LD: Definitely. Some of those are from my point of view, and some of those are written from my father’s point of view. Sometimes, the point of view changes within the song. Our father was really brave. Towards the end, he was very thankful for his life. I was very proud of him. He didn’t want to go, man. He fought for months and months, but I think he really fought for years. I think his health had been messed up for a long time. But when the time came, through my mother’s spiritual strength, he was able to make peace with himself through his gratitude. As he said it, his life was so amazing that there had to be someone to thank for it. I think at the very end he found his spiritual center that gave him a lot of strength.
Part of that is my life, too. I’m always leaving home. (laughs) I’m always on the road. There is definitely a sense of departure. It is also, I think, coming from my father, and other spiritual musicians that I’ve known that there is a celebratory side of the cycle, as well, like the old New Orleans funeral march.
RR: And you tapped into that vibe with “New Orleans Walkin’ Dead.”
LD: (laughs) That was one of the songs that I woke up and I heard the music in my head. I did a quick demo, and I sat down at wrote the whole story. I don’t know where that came from. Well, I do know. I spent a lot of time in New Orleans in the summer of 2010 playing with Johnny Vidacovich and George Porter. I love New Orleans; it’s like my second home for my wife and I. I don’t know; the lyrics just came out.
RR: What have you learned from playing with musicians like those two cats who are so experienced with such an improvisational spirit in their playing?
LD: Yeah, it’s beautiful because they don’t want to have setlists, and they prefer not to play tunes. They really want to go out there and be creative and do some group improvisation. It’s a great learning experience for me—to push me out of my safe area, and go out there and wing it. George Porter, James Singleton, and Johnny Vidacovich are world-class musicians. It’s so much fun. It’s really the only time I get nervous. Well, I used to when I first started playing with Johnny years ago. I’d go down, and think, “Oh
my God, what are we going to do?” (laughter) But Johnny and George are both such a breeze to play with that they make it fun.
RR: Contrast that improvisational playing in New Orleans with your three years playing as a member of the Black Crowes. They definitely play tunes, but the Crowes are able to get really loose, too.
LD: Yeah. Yeah. The key is that, no matter what, for me, and I’ve recently heard Trey [Anastasio] say the same thing and I was glad to see that, but the key is to just concentrate on the other musicians, and let your subconscious handle what you’re doing. If I just immerse myself in what the other people are doing, then I can be a little more reactionary with the interplay as opposed to being caught or lost in my own trip—playing bullshit guitar. Listening and responding and interacting, the music carries itself and it bounces back and forth. Of course, I learned it with my brother, and I was able to carry that into the Black Crowes. Steve Gorman, the drummer, man, just blew his mind, right? We’d get into these things and get into these telepathic rhythmic pulses, and that’s what it is all about. Johnny is the master of that. He’s beautiful at that. That comes close to what the Allman Brothers call “hittin’ the note.” That’s what it’s all about.
RR: You also had some rather notable guests play on Keys to the Kingdom. The last time we spoke around three years ago, you were on a blues tour featuring Mavis Staples. She also appears on the track “The Meeting.”
LD: It’s a real gospel-y song, and I tried to make it sound like a combination of early Staple Singers and early Rev. Robert Wilkins with the tambourine. We used to play that song for years as a rock song, kind of like a funk rock song. But then I rearranged it to make it sound like a country/blues/gospel group. Mavis was the obvious choice. We’re dear friends and I love her to death. She was so sweet. I had a day off from the Crowes, I flew in to Chicago, and she nailed it on the first take. To me, she is just a beautiful example of how to live your life, too. She’s so humble, she’s experienced so much, and she represents so much of American history. Through her father [Pops Staples], she goes back to Charlie Patton, Howlin’ Wolf, the Delta Blues, the Chicago scene, gospel music, Mahalia Jackson, and, also, the Civil Rights movement. She is truly a national treasure.
RR: Absolutely. And from another band of yours, South Memphis String Band, you had Alvin Youngblood Hart playing harmonica and vocals on “Ol’ Cannonball.” He’s a bit younger than Mavis, of course, but equally influential.
LD: Hey, man, don’t be fooled. He ain’t that much younger. (laughter) I’m just kidding. I’m always fucking with the South Memphis guys about their age. They are years older than I am—Jimbo [Mathus], as well. [“Ol’ Cannonball”] is another
one where I woke up one morning, went to the piano and wrote that music, and then the lyrics came pretty easily. I wanted it to be a String Band-type song, so I invited Alvin to come down to play and sing. He’s a Soul Brother #1. He played on our first record in ’99 [ Shake Hands With Shorty ], and he’s one of my best friends.
RR: Speaking of piano…two of my favorite passages on the album contain haunting piano played by Spooner Oldham on the outros for “Hear the Hills” and the album closer, “Jellyrollin’ All Over Heaven.”
LD: Spooner Oldham was my father’s favorite piano player, so he was the logical choice to play on the record because Dad couldn’t do it. I drove to Muscle Shoals and had a wonderful day with Spooner—again, another series of first and second takes; he’s just a beautiful musician. I knew what I wanted to do. I had it in my mind—to me, it was like the ghostly piano from heaven or whatever. Or, a lonesome church house out in the woods. That’s what I was imagining. What I did was I isolated Spooner’s track from “Jellyrollin’.” It’s so strong that it just sounded like a whole other song. Those parts come from “Jellyrollin’,” and then we just recorded some bugs one night outside the studio.
RR: Great idea. It’s funny that you mentioned the “lonesome church” imagery because “Hear the Hills” follows “How I Wish My Train Would Come” on the album, and when I heard that piano sound at the tail end of “Hear the Hills,” it sounded like your train did come, but you’re still sitting at the station, and all you hear is this faraway piano coming from some church in the woods. Beautiful.
LD: That’s cool, man. (laughs) You took it further than I ever did. That’s wonderful. Thank you, man. Thank you so much. The outro to “Hear the Hills”—I’ve done instrumental sections before where I had an idea of what it would be like, but I knew exactly what that was going to sound like from the jump. I was really happy with the way it came out. There are not a lot of extended instrumentals…in the past, we’ve recorded a lot of group improvisation and put that on a lot of records, but it really wasn’t what this record was about. I wanted to do an instrumental illustration of that song, and it was cool because it just came out exactly like I heard it in my head.
RR: Let’s talk about the Dylan track from Blonde on Blonde, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again,” you covered on Keys to the Kingdom. That idea came from your father, right?
LD: Yes. The real story is that he couldn’t talk. He was on a respirator, and I was spending the night with him. In that summer of ’09, there was a great Dylan article in Mojo magazine. I took the magazine up and read the article to him, and some passages, I read a few times. We could still communicate even though he couldn’t talk. Dylan had some great ideas about the South and southern music in there, and it was a great escape for us that night. That’s what we always did; we talked about music and art and concepts. We were best friends. That’s what we did. What happened was that hours later—I had passed out and woke up—he wanted his pen and paper. It took a while for him to communicate it, but while sleeping that arrangement came into his head like a Junior Kimbrough/Fred McDowell version of that song. He wrote it down “one chord song,” and I said, “O.K.!” It was right up my alley. And then he wrote “Memphis Blues.” And I said, “You mean “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues?” And he nodded yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, “Oh, man, you got it. We’ll do it.” It felt like throughout the whole record he was definitely with us. He will always be. He is with us when we play; he’s with us when we’re in the studio. I think this record is really our finest collaboration.
RR: You grew up learning music from your father, and from where you were born and raised, and through your geographical ability to have access to American music. But you’ve recently opened up for Robert Plant who came upon American music in quite a different manner all together.
LD: Oh, man. He’s a total gentleman, a professional, and he works very hard. He’s always pushing himself and the band to go in new directions. They rehearse all the time, and he is not complacent at all. I think he really craves a musical adventure. He tells this story from the stage. Every year there was this amazing blues tour of the UK and Europe, and the Germans made this great film of it. Every year, all the heavy blues guys like Son House, Bukka White, Howlin’ Wolf, and Fred McDowell would all go overseas and tour. Robert said he would see these concerts every year for a period of time, and it really made sense to me because you wonder how did that generation of young British musicians have such a mainline into American roots music to which to draw from to create some of the most classic rock ‘n’ roll that is still timeless.
I think the British guys, because of those tours, had a more one-on-one, man-to-man exposure to the blues greats than the American people did. That really helped. You think about it—you’ve got Peter Green, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and the list goes on and on, and I think these kids grew up with almost a closer relationship to these artists than the American kids. I knew for a fact that my dad grew up in Memphis and loved all those blues guys, but because of the segregation, his relationship was almost more mysterious. It wasn’t until later that those artists were more accessible to him, and at that point, it was mainly the acoustic guys.
RR: And yet Plant picked up on yet another form of American music.
LD: I’m glad you brought that up. Blues-influenced rock ‘n’ roll was the basis for [Plant’s] early work, but what he told me, personally, was that it wasn’t until much later in life that he got turned onto American country music. For whatever reason, he did not hear that. And that’s why he loves Buddy Miller so much [Plant’s Band of Joy guitarist]. Buddy knows all that stuff by heart. Buddy’s a living, breathing traditional guy of Americana music. He really enjoys working with Buddy and his friends because they grew up with American country music and he didn’t.
RR: When you first opened up for Plant and the Band of Joy, you played with your brother, Cody, as the NMA Duo. Why did you play as a duo, without Chris Chew on bass, and are you playing as a duo when you open up for Plant in April?
LD: Yes, sir. It was funny. It was just a cycle of coincidences. Cody and I—our early tours in ’98 and ’99 were always as a duo because it was all we could afford. Even before that and after that some, we’re brothers; we always played as a duo. In May ’09, when Chris was playing with Hill Country [Revue], he told both of us that “look, after JazzFest and some gigs in May, I gotta go make some money,” so he went to go drive buses, which he’s done off and on his whole life. He was a professional truck driver before he joined the band. So, from that point on, any gigs that would come up, Cody and I would just play as a duo: “man, this is fun.” We love playing with Chris, but the duo is fun, too.
We opened the first three Robert Plant and the Band of Joy American shows as a duo, and they loved it and they hired us back. I think, in a way, it’s more appropriate because our interpretations are wide open as a duo. We can play basically the same set—really rootsy and traditional, or super aggressive and punk rock. I don’t know; it’s just something that we can do as brothers. I think as a trio we’d be too loud for the Band of Joy. I think the duo is really the perfect match.
We’re on the road with Chris right now, and we’re going to work with him off and on throughout the year. You know, being a professional touring musician, you have to keep changing it up, man, so it’s a good way for us to do fresh things. We honestly recorded the record with just the two of us. That’s how we were able to do it so fast because Cody’s so good and we’re so telepathic that we were just sitting right there next to each, just eye to eye, and just nailed it because he played it so well.
RR: You have a new record out with personal meaning and you just started your tour. What can we expect from the North Mississippi Allstars setlists in 2011?
LD: On this first leg that we’re on, for the first time, we’re doing “An Evening With.” There’s no opening act. There are not two proper sets. In what would be the opening band set, the first hour, we’re just doing experimental things. I’ll do four or five songs solo, Cody will join me, and he has an experimental one-man band that he’s been working with, and then, Chris comes out and we play some songs as a trio, but Cody’s playing guitar or keyboards. We kind of save the traditional power trio for the proper set. I’ve really been enjoying doing those first sets, man. I’ve never had the guts to play solo before, but I really enjoy it.
RR: What about the series of in-store performances this month?
LD: Those will be either the duo, or just myself. We’ll see how Cody feels. Chris, he does the majority of the driving, so we let him rest. The songs on this record are of the fashion that I can play ‘em. I didn’t want to record any songs that couldn’t be distilled
down to acoustic guitar. We have in the past. Our last record, Hernando, was like power trio rock, but when it came time (laughs) to play it on acoustic guitar, there wasn’t much happened, you know what I’m sayin’? It’s just part of the timelessness I was reaching for. It all had to be able to go down to the smallest common denominator.
RR: You’ve got some Black Crowes dates in Europe, too.
LD: Yeah, I’m looking forward to that. This is a natural closure of the hiatus tour. I was saying, “We’ve gotta go over there just for bragging rights. We’re playing so good, we’ve got to go over there and show them where it’s at.” (laughs)
RR: Indeed. Is it fair to say that you are at a point where a chapter has ended in your life, and another chapter is beginning? Do you feel that way as an artist, too?
LD: It feels like a new beginning, really. It does. It feels more like our first album cycle than anything has since. Maybe taking the time off is part of that. Also, it seems like we are grown men now, we’ve been through a lot, and we have a better handle on what we’re supposed to be doing. It feels really good.
