Thursday, December 27, 2007
Music news North Mississippi Allstars slice it down the middle
Posted by Rodney Carmichael @Rappin_Rodney on Thu, Dec 27, 2007 at 11:12 PM
The North Mississippi Allstars play the Fox Theatre’s New Year's Eve bash as part of the Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi Soul Stew Revival. $35-$45. 9 p.m.
Written by Grant Britt
“We’ve never been a blues band,†North Mississippi Allstars' bassist Chris Chew says. “People have tried to make us one, but rock will eventually come out.†For their latest, Hernando, named after the bandmembers’ hometown, you get the best of both worlds.
That’s largely due to the guiding hand of Allstars patriarch Jim Dickinson, legendary producer of a genre-straddling array of artists from Ry Cooder to the Replacements. Dickinson has guided the recorded product of sons Luther on guitar and Cody on drums along with Chew on bass since the band’s ’01 sophomore effort 51 Phantom.
Left to its own devices, the band takes a scattergun approach to recording, writing lyrics on the bus and working out the songs during sound check. But for the latest effort, the elder Dickinson demanded that the band do demos of all the songs they wanted to record before he’d let them in his Memphis, Tenn.-based Ardent Studios. “We had all kinds of songs demo’d up, man,†Luther said recently by phone from his Senatobia, Miss., home. “But he kept me on track [by saying], ‘Naw, we’re gonna make a blues rock record.'â€
The result is a trip in time from ZZ Top to Hendrix to Chuck Berry, flavored with Mississippi hill country mud. It’s a funky, fuzzy collection of rock-injected blues, but there’s enough variety so you don’t get bogged down in any one rhythm.
“The cool thing was, I was playing fresh stuff,†Luther says of the all-originals record. It’s the first from their Song of the South label. “That was real exciting for me, especially as much as we play live, to have fresh ideas coming out of my fingers when the tape’s rolling,†Luther says. “That made me feel like I’m doing the right thing.â€
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