North Mississippi Allstars

Jim Dickinson: In the early Fall of 2004, the North Mississippi Allstars (Luther Dickinson, Cody Dickinson and Chris Chew) began what would become the six month process of recording their new record, Electric Blue Watermelon (ATO), their sixth album-length CD. We started at Sam Phillips' Studio with Roland Janes, the Great Kahuna of the Memphis Sound. We let the resulting demos fester a while and then we took the show to Ardent Studio "C" for a month long lock out with Pete Matthews, "Black Pete," as I call him, engineering. We augmented the result at the Zebra Ranch with long time Allstars' recordist Kevin Houston. Electric Blue Watermelon is a return to form and concept for NMA. Luther came up with a strong variety of material put together from Otha Turner's vocabulary of wisdom and wit with some Furry Lewis on the side. Paying musical tribute to the late, great Lee Baker, Otha Turner, and Mark Unobski, Luther sought to immortalize his mentors and childhood influences as contemporary folk heroes. With special guest appearances by friends Lucinda Williams, the incredible Robert Randolph, old road buddies Dirty Dozen Brass Band, rapper Al Kapone from the film "Hustle and Flow" and the ever present syncopated rolling thunder of the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, this theatrical musical statement goes straight into the cosmos of collective imagination. "Let's do it like we did before" Luther Dickinson: The North Mississippi Allstars were founded in 1996; a product of a very special time for modern Mississippi country blues. RL Burnside, Jr. Kimbrough, Otha Turner and their musical families were at their peak; touring the world, making classic records and doing the all-night boogie at Jr's Juke Joint and Otha's BBQ Goat picnics -- the music and the culture rich as the black Mississippi dirt. We used to drive down wide eyed and open eared to watch and listen to these giants among men, the kings of the hills playing their music with their people for their people. The musical traditions passing from generation to generation. Down at Otha's we used to boogie in the dirt, dust and gravel. Old ladies teachin' the young girls how to shake 'em on down. The sweaty walls of Jr's Juke Joint used to vibrate and amplify the all night-long moonshine madness. The corn liquor inspired a very unique psychedelic trance blues. The multi-generational musical families gave the old-field hollers a very aggressive loud edge, modern electric country blues. Young outsider musicians couldn't just hang out and hide in the corner. You had to play, felt like it was an insult not to. The elder's requesting you to play their own songs. You had to come on with the come on. For us, the experience goes back another generation. In the middle 60s, at the Memphis Country Blues Festivals, Mudboy and the Neutrons, our father Jim Dickinson, Lee Baker, Sid Selvidge and Jimmy Crosthwait experienced the cultural collision of wise blues men and crazy white kids with Furry Lewis, Bukka White, Sleepy John Estes and Hill Country master Mr. Fred McDowell. This is the World Boogie. JD: The Memphis County Blues Festivals, held in the mid-60s at the Overton Park Shell in Memphis, TN, created a magical community of first generation blues musicians and the Memphis bohemian underground. Furry Lewis, Bukka White, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Johnny Woods were great role models for generations of blues students, passing on their legacy to audiences and musicians alike. Electric Blue Watermelon was the free-form back-up band created by the late-great Lee Baker for these events. Hipster, hippies, and rock musicians historically interacted with Delta and Hill Country masters and the creative flow went in both directions. LD: Electric Blue Watermelon is a tribute and continuation of the World Boogie. We are a product of the World Boogie. Electric Blue Watermelon is a realization of a shared vision older than us. It was satisfying collaborating with our father on this. He has always pointed us in the path of the World Boogie and encouraged us to make the right decision. In the folk tradition of oral history, Electric Blue Watermelon celebrates the lives and legends of men who are folk heroes in my community. Electric Blue Watermelon is about old times and our lives growing up in this musical community and family. This is our story. We don't try to be what we're not. Through the filter of generations their blues becomes our rock and roll. Youth culture reinventing what inspired it. If the traditions are passed down and kept alive, they can't help but mutate and change. JD: The blues roll on father to son, hand to hand with the strength of the most influential music form of the 20th Century. As Mississippi Joe Callicott taught young Kenny Brown, as Otha Turner taught my sons, Luther and Cody, the tradition transcends color lines and generational boundaries to the broadest audience in the history of the art form. TV commercials, public service announcements, and the Sopranos' prime-time cable TV crime drama all play the blues to sell their products. It works. The honesty of the music is irresistible. "Times done been won't be no more" LD: RL Burnside has retired. Jr Kimbrough passed away and his club burned down. Mudboy and The Neutrons are recovering from the murder of Lee Baker. The old days are gone. When Otha Turner passed away I began writing these songs. It caused me to rethink who we are and what we should be doing. We travel so much that the old fashion Mississippi Rock and Roll we make night after night is our home away from home. We can't control the music; where it goes or what we write. The music always dictates what direction we go. Loud psychedelic southern folk rock blues. In my imagination, Electric Blue Watermelon is a musical experience which transcends place and time, life and death. It reaches into the future and back into our past. Every note as if it was your last. JD: North Mississippi Allstars make no claim to being a blues band. Something happens when white boys play the blues. Rock and Roll. Whether it's Elvis or the Beastie Boys, this music has come to symbolize freedom the world over and to illustrate the inter-racial brotherhood of man. "See what tomorrow brings" Luther Dickinson and Jim Dickinson - Mississippi