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| Its
just a few minutes to show time, and
North Mississippi All-Stars guitarist/singer Luther
Dickinson is trying to decide what to have for dinner.
Most 25 year old performers would be pacing backstage,
nervously peeking from behind the dressing room door to
see what kind of crowd was filing in for the show. But
when you've played on a Replacements album by the time
you were 12, and your band is mentored by living blues
legend R.L. Burnside, you take things in stride. Dickinson eventually turns his attention from the menu of the Brandy House, where his band is playing tonight in Atlanta, to the tape recorder as he retraces he and drummer brother Cody's musical transformation from a teenaged alternative rock band to a jug band to the current buzz of the underground, the North Mississippi All-Stars. |
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| VOYAGER:
Your dad, Jim Dickinson, produced records for The
Replacements and many other notables. I suppose he was
doing that before you were even born? Luther Dickinson: I was like 12, 13 when he was working on The Replacements. I played on that one track, "Play Dirty Pool" on Pleased to Meet Me. But he was producing all through us growing up. He started out producing in the late `60's and went on to be a session musician and learned a lot more from producers like Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd and cats he was working with as a session player. Then he moved back to Memphis and started producing with Lenny Waronker at Warner Brothers, people like Ry Cooder. He's always gone back and forth from a sideman to producer. He loves being a side man, playing for other cats, and producing, also. VOYAGER: So when you guys were 3 did he instantly shove guitars in your hands? Was it a very musical household growing up? LD: Yeah, definitely. He always sat around and played loud guitar. I have some funny memories of it, it sounded so cool back then. When I was 5 and Cody was 3 or 4 for this one Christmas we got two guitars, a little Strat and an acoustic. Cody and I grew up playing guitars together. When I was 12 and he was 9 or 10 he switched over to the drums. It was a very musical household. |
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VOYAGER: When you
were in high school you formed your alternative/punk
band, DDT (Dickinson Dickinson Taylor)... LD: Yeah, when I was a senior in high school we started that band. Played a lot of originals, different styles of songs. Me and Cody and a guy named Paul Taylor was the bass player, an old friend from Memphis. VOYAGER: So apparently that was pretty explosively successful, and then you started Gutbucket, which was a side project. How did you go from the alternative punk rock style to the jug band style? LD: Oh, we've always played roots-style music similar to what we do now, even with DDT. We backed up our dad, too, in a band that he had. |
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