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Orion Free Concert Series: Memphis Country Blues Presents North Mississippi Allstars and Ruthie Foster
October 12 @ 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm
FreeAbout North Mississippi Allstars:
Nothing runs deeper than family ties. Brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters understand one another at the purest level. When families rally around music, they speak this oft-unspoken bond aloud and into existence. After 25 years, twelve albums, four GRAMMY® Award nominations, and sold out shows everywhere, North Mississippi Allstars open up their world once again on their thirteenth album, Set Sail [New West Records], welcoming other family (by blood and by the road) into the fold. As legend has it, Luther and Cody Dickinson started the band in 1996 as a loose collective of like-minded second-generation musicians who shared a local repertoire and regional style. Over the years, the lineup shifted by design, and each subsequent record offered up a different combination of collaborators. This time around, they mined the talents of Jesse Williams on bass and Lamar Williams, JR. on vocals. During the Allman Betts Band Family Revival, the Dickinsons first linked up with Lamar, son of the Allman Brothers bassist Lamar Williams, Sr., becoming fast friends and collaborators and eventually paving the way for Set Sail.
“The chemistry we have with this lineup is powerful,” observes Luther. “We are all second-generation musicians and share a telepathic, relaxed ease about creating and performing. I believe music is a form of communion with our loved ones and conjuring this vibe with members of musical families can be inspirational. Lamar and I are like-minded. I’ve never had the pleasure of working with a singing partner like Lamar. He has a true-blue quality in his musicality that will pull you in and break your heart. At the same time, Jesse grew up playing music with his brothers and his father—as did we. He plays like a sibling. We recorded the album fresh off the road and captured the energy we had worked up with him. I’m drawn to musical families, regardless of style. Playing with second- or third-generation players allows us an easy unspoken musical dialog. It’s not a big thing; it’s just what we do. We never had to figure out what it means and takes to be a musician. We all inherently know.”
They picked up this wisdom by osmosis. As sons of legendary producer and musician Jim Dickinson, Luther and Cody have been producing records themselves since they were teenagers. Separately, the brothers have produced albums by Samantha Fish, R.L. Boyce, Lucero, Amy Lavere, the Birds of Chicago, Ian Segal, and more. Luther produced two records from Otha Turner, including Everybody Hollerin’ Goat, which was named one of the ten most important blues albums of the nineties. Luther and Cody co-produce North Mississippi Allstars records as the “Dickinson Brothers.”
“We learned an enormous amount from our father,” Luther says, “Cody and I made mistakes, but we’ve always believed in ourselves, and we had to learn for ourselves. Rock ‘n’ roll is self-taught. Each generation has to reinvent itself and shed the skin of the elders. On Set Sail, we feel as if we’ve once again ‘broken the code,’ and know what we want and how to get it.”
Following 2019’s Up and Rolling, which received a GRAMMY® Award nod in the category of “Best Contemporary Blues Album,” Set Sail continues the band’s tradition of creating roots music that displays remarkable variety. Luther and Cody Dickinson dig in with the production and different guitar tones; the record sizzles with hard yet understated groove, grown folk music. Luther’s wide-ranging guitar style features jazz riffs, psychedelic sounds, and soulful slide. Drummer and multi-instrumentalist Cody draws on roots music, rock, jazz, rap, and other styles to create rhythms that propel the band’s sounds and move it forward. Their two aesthetics combine to create the band’s unique style, “Primitive Modernism,” melding the new and the old, traditional, and futuristic, crafted lyrics and improvisational music. Speaking of, the first single and title track “Set Sail Part I” [feat. Lamar Williams, JR.] rides a riff right out of the Southern Delta into the embrace of a horn section as the vocal interplay simmers on the line, “The water may rise again, but we shall set sail.”
The Dickinson brothers have recorded and toured with Mavis Staples, Charlie Musslewhite, John Hiatt, Robert Plant and Patty Griffin, G Love, Jon Spencer, the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Los Lobos, and the Black Crowes. Meanwhile, their seminal debut, Shake hands with Shorty (2000), earned the band the first of four GRAMMY® nominations, and changed the Dickinson brothers’ lives forever.
Luther adds, “Quincy says, ‘Music gives back what you put into it.’ We have dedicated our lives to music, and it’s given us a fantastic journey that’s still only beginning.
In 1997, R.L. Burnside hired me and took me on the road. R.L., Kenny Brown, and Cedric Burnside taught me how to tour nationally after years of touring locally. The Shake Hands with Shorty tour in 2000 took Cody and I around the world and changed our lives. We never really slowed down.”
They forge ahead always as a family, first and foremost. “North Mississippi Allstars means family,” Cody concludes. “I get the joy of working with my brother. Our families keep growing too. There’s a sense of history. The older I get, the more I realize how important it is to record this music, so younger kids can hear it. I just want to make sure we pass it on. It’s a huge honor to be a part of this tradition.”
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About Ruthie Foster:
Ruthie Foster’s ninth studio album represents a new high water mark for the veteran blues artist—a collection of songs possessing pure power, like a tidal wave of musical generosity. Healing Time finds Foster pushing her boundaries as a singer and songwriter more than ever before, creating a truly live-sounding atmosphere with the help of her band, who sound refreshingly loose and lived-in throughout these 12 songs. We’ve all been in need of some healing in recent times, and Foster’s latest provides a guide for how to move through the world with equal parts compassion and resolve.
Healing Time is the latest jewel in Foster’s accomplished career, which includes multiple Grammy nominations and collaborations with fellow luminaries like Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks. For her latest, Foster contributed more to the writing process than she had on any of her previous albums, effectively refining her own songcraft in the process. “With this album, I dug deep and tried to go for the best way to write,” she explains. “This album says a lot about the period we were making it in, and how I wanted to find my way out of it.”
Work on the album began in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as Foster enlisted previous collaborators like Gary Nicholson and Grace Pettis to pitch in during the writing process—as well as every member of her band. “I wanted my band involved in the entire process of this album,” she explains, and they also played a large role in recreating the sound that Foster had become drawn to after spending time with her vinyl collection. “I was aiming to keep these songs sounding like they came from that era, which says a lot about where I am in my life, too.”
Veteran producer Mark Howard (Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams) came in to bring new ideas to Foster’s table as recording began at Studio 71 West in Austin, TX, New Orleans’ famed Esplanade Studios, and Blue Rock Studio in Wimberley, TX. “Mark’s ability to turn a song’s arrangement upside down was intriguing and sometimes challenging for me,” she states. “It was a lot to wrap my head around, but he made me think outside of the box I didn’t even know I was in.”
Producer Dan Barrett, who also worked with Foster on 2017’s Joy Comes Back, then took the helm at Black Pumas co-bandleader Adrian Quesada’s famed Electric Deluxe studio in Austin. Along with several Black Pumas members, Barrett brought in a collection of Austin’s finest backing musicians, like Glenn Fukunaga (The Chicks, Shawn Colvin). “With Dan onboard we were able to find the glue to these songs sonically, and he brilliantly melded my familiar Texas blues-Americana sound with what Mark pulled out of me in New Orleans,” Foster says. “This combination gave these songs a breath of fresh air, and it all came together very organically.”
Healing Time’s title—as well as its burst-of-sunshine title track, which features pedal steel legend Robert Randolph—is a reference not only to the trials many have faced over the last several years, but also the necessity of what Foster does as an artist. “I hear fans tell me that the music we make is very spiritually healing,” she says. “The experience of dealing with my own grief after losing a band member a year before the pandemic while navigating around zoom school with my daughter and trying to figure out what to do with myself was tough but necessary. When I look at it as a whole it was all very healing for me which is pretty much how I try to live my life. There’s always time for healing, if you give it time.”
And Healing Time is ultimately a work that explores such extremes as being human often brings to the surface, reminding listeners that even when we feel like we’re at the top, we’re ultimately still finding our way—a beautiful reflection of the essence of living itself.
