Review: Various Musicians

Subject: Great Summer Concerts
From: DonMeixner
Date: 13 Sep 99 - 11:24 PM

To Joe Offer: Could you please kick this post over to a space of it's own. I can't seem to make my equipment work anymore.

This past summer saw me going to more concerts than in the past three years. I saw them in different venues and they were unique in that they all featured legendary performers. The Kingston Trio, Jethro Tull, and Dave Van Ronk.

The Trio was at a nightclub in the local Casino on the Res nearby. Cindy and I went out for a night, something we haven't done in several years. We saw a fine show. Sure it was all the old stuff and sure it ain't really The Kingston Trio any more but so what. I watched three guys who are consumate performers. They know how to entertain and they well understand the dynamics of playing accoustic instruments and singing at the same time. The subtilties of when to put on the power and when to lay off, where the joke should go and how to give as well as recieve. Anyone who thinks that a singers life on the stage is in their future should watch The Trio perform.

Jethro Tull was a gift from my daughter. Rebekkah said "I got the tickets" I said, "Great, to what?" She sang " Sitting on a park bench..." I was already in the car. Never saw so many grey haired skull bangers in my life. And there must have been a fire because there was a lot of smoke and lights and stuff. There was also this smell that was some how familiar but I couldn't quite place it. I aske Bekkah if she was familiar with the smell. She shook her head , looked straight ahead and said, " Never smelled it before Dad." What a show! What energy! What volume! I'll go again anytime.

I went by myself to see Dave Van Ronk. Dave Van Ronk played in a hole in the wall little coffee house in Syracuse New York Called Happy Endings, ( great place for Rick to play). An appropriate venue for Dave. Bricks and boards on the walls. 95 types of coffee . Skinny girls in black leotards serving carrot cake and Super Nova Capacino Latte with nutmeg. Dour Dave fingerpicked just like he did in 68 when I saw him last. He didn't remember me tho'. I did him.

This summer I saw some legends play. At the ends of their carreers? Not apparently so. STill energetic, still working and still available.

Don

Subject: Review:North Mississippi All Stars
From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler
Date: 27 Jun 00 - 06:56 AM

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

Subject: RE: Review
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Jun 00 - 07:37 AM

"...blues, gospel, punk rock" hybrid, huh? Sounds interesting.

Is it that music evolves by the successful combination of elements thought previously to be incongruous?

They list some relatively obscure influences. R.L. Burnside definitely has a different approach to the "blues."

Thanks for passing the news along.