Modern Mississippi Music.
If you ask Luther Dickinson to define what the North Mississippi Allstars create, that’s the answer you’ll get from the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist. It’s the path he and his brother Cody have been going down ever since NMA dropped its 2000 debut “Shake Hand with Shorty” and one they’ll be sharing when they come to Port Washington on Nov. 9.
“By the time we made ‘Shake Hands with Shorty,’ our recipe was Mississippi Hill Country and Sacred Steel cross-bred with our stoner/punk/low-re psychedelic jam,” Dickinson explained. “I would never presume to call myself a blues musician. But growing up in Mississippi, we were surrounded by so many traditional families that played hardcore blues. We always brought our own influences into everything we did, be it psychedelia, production ideas or whatever. I never aspired to be traditional, hardcore blues. The connotations are heavy. Another phrase that I like is roots music. Listening to Ryan Coogler’s interviews that accompanied ‘The Sinners’ movie. His straight-up quote is that genre is an instrument of segregation and racism. I don’t want any part of that.”
So it goes with the quartet’s twelfth and most recent studio outing, “Still Shakin’,” which commemorates the 25th anniversary of NMA’s debut. But rather than hitting the road and playing the first record in its entirety, the Dickinson siblings, along with Ray Ray Holoman (Eminem; Ne-Yo) and Joey Williams (Blind Boys of Alabama), recorded 11 new songs.
Joining them is a collective of musicians including JoJo Hermann (Hammond B-3/clavinet), former NMA member Duwayne Burnside (vocals, guitar), Kashiah Hunter (pedal steel), Trae Pierce (bass), Sharisse and Shontelle Norman (vocals).
Opening with “Preachin’ Blues,” a real stomper fueled by soaring pedal steel and a pounding rhythm that is a one-way street to hand claps and hip shaking, “Still Shakin’” is packed with an array of infectious jams. Highlights range from the call-and-response jam band-flavored gospel of “Pray For Peace” featuring a spirited vocal turn by Williams, fat-back funk of “Poor Boy” paced by Burnside and “Monomyth (Folk Hero’s Last Ride),” the ethereal closing instrumental dedicated to the Dickinsons’ storied late father Jim.
The eclectic nature of the NMA sound stems from Luther Dickinson’s open approach to his craft, which was further refined during the pandemic when he was forced to develop his home studio skills. It carried over to this recent project.
“The musicians I was working with, Ray-Ray [Holloman] and Joey [Williams], are so great and their contributions were so powerful that they really became an inspiration to feature them,” he said. “It’s funny, we have a couple of different processes we look at. If a song comes together and it is too agenda-driven, like it’s a reggae or Americana song, we worked on a formula a couple of years ago where we try to break it down to the bones and rebuild it as we see fit. As opposed to just being chained to whatever idea of whatever the song is supposed to be. That was a real freedom for us—we call that the formula.”
For Dickinson, the live approach to playing music started out being influenced by the likes of doing psychedelics and immersing himself in the sounds of Jimi Hendrix and family friends, The Allman Brothers. Coupled with spending so much time forming bonds with juke joint blues families whose patriarchs were latter-day legends like Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside and Otha Turner, the 52-year-old guitar player’s non-NMA experiences included a stint as a member of The Black Crowes.
But it was a post-Crowes experience with the late Phil Lesh that really honed the latter-day NMA’s sound.
“Leaving the Crowes wasn’t an easy move to make, but I’m glad I did because shortly thereafter was when Phil Lesh started calling me,” Dickinson said. “That led to a whole new community, a whole new repertoire, a whole new experience.”
With a dozen records recorded under the NMA banner, not to mention side projects like “Dead Blues: Vol. 1,” a platter of blues covers the Grateful Dead recorded, Dickinson has plenty of musical options to go with from night to night. Even so, he knows there’s a balance to strike that he’s more than happy to honor.
“I don’t blame anybody for it, but we definitely have fans who still want to hear the first record—I know how it goes,” Dickinson said. “We really enjoy playing the new stuff and we’re working up new stuff for our next record as well. But we also play foundational songs off the first record and mix it up with whatever we’ve got cooking. Even if it’s a batch of 30 or 40 songs, I have to switch it up and can’t just do the same set list night after night.”
The North Mississippi Allstars will be performing on Nov. 9 at Landmark on Main Street, 223 Main St., Port Washington. For more information, visit www.landmarkonmainstreet.org or call 516-767-6444.
