From today's London Times

It's a treat to beat your feet in the Mississippi mud
by David Sinclair
THE NAME suggests an all-hands-on-deck, blues celebrity roadshow, and perhaps one day that is what North Mississippi All Stars will be. But for the moment the group consists of two skinny white kids on guitar and drums and one colossal black man on five-string bass. And, as they rip through a set at London's Borderline club that marries the deep rural blues heritage of Fred MacDowell to the southern boogie traditions of the Allman Brothers, it quickly becomes apparent that they are the hottest new American rock'n'roll band to arrive on these shores in a month of stormy Mondays.

The guitarist and drummer are the brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson. Luther, 27, plays slide guitar and sings in a raw voice that sounds black and soulful. Cody, 24, hammers his kit as if possessed. The triangle is completed by the awesome figure of their former schoolfriend Chris Chew, 26, who stands 6ft 7in tall and weighs about as much as the others combined. While the brothers' music comes from the juke joints of the North Mississippi hill country, Chew's striding bass lines and harmony vocals come from the Rising Star Baptist church in their hometown of Coldwater, Mississippi.

"If Robert Johnson could hear Chris play that gospel bass, he'd love it," Cody says. "There's a pure energy about this music. It's blues, it's gospel, it's punk rock. It's this weird, sick hybrid."

Sick or slick? "It's both, man."

Luther and Cody are the sons of producer and keyboard player Jim Dickinson, whose production credits include albums by Ry Cooder, Big Star and Lucinda Williams, and who played with the Rolling Stones on their Sticky Fingers album.

"Dad would do these shows with people like Jim Keltner and Ry Cooder and bring the tapes back and it would knock me out," Luther recalls. "He bought us guitars and a kit, and then pretty much left us to it."

But even more important than parental influence has been the unique environment in which they grew up, a factor recognised by the precise sense of region invoked by their name. What they call the hill-country blues of North Mississippi is a contemporary phenomenon, and one of America's best-kept secrets.

"The delta of Robert Johnson and Son House has gone. It's all casinos and skyscrapers now," Luther says. "But the hill country, it's not changed. You go down to Othar Turner's farm and the guy still milks his own cow, makes his own moonshine and plays a bamboo cane fife. It's the basis of the hill country, one-chord boogie and it's still there."

When they're not working on the All Stars, they spend their time in their own recording studio producing and working on records by other artists.

"It's an integrated, interracial bunch of musicians with so much talent," Luther says. "It's a bit like the Stax scene might have been in its early days."

The band's first album, Shake Hands With Shorty, goes some way to fulfilling the promise of their live shows. The raw, eerily dry production allows original compositions such as the raucous opener Shake 'Em On Down and traditional tunes including Drinking Muddy Water to sparkle like diamonds in the rough. Crucially, there is an energy and drive to their music that only youth provides.

But rather like Britain's Gomez, they are definitely a pair of old heads on young shoulders. They can't grasp the concept of rejecting the music of previous generations on principal.

"If you're not open enough to accept what your elders are telling you, you're missing out man," Luther says. "Othar Turner and R. L. Burnside, you'd be a fool not to learn from them. They are keys to the past, and history has a way of repeating itself."

North Mississippi All Stars play at Water Rats, London WC1, tonight. Their album, Shake Hands With Shorty, is released on Blanco Y Negro on July 24
(c)Times Newspapers

RtS