From RS Mag: New North Mississippi Allstars!

[Jaimoe]

I'm excited about this for sure. The NMA are one of my favourite new bands, and they have added new life and a fresh approach to heavy-blues and southern rock music.

Miss. All-Stars Ready Polaris

Oasis' Noel Gallagher drops in on band's third album

They've already released two albums since 2000, so it seems unlikely that the North Mississippi All-Stars' third, Polaris, has been in the works since 1999. But the blues-rocking mad scientists have just been following a plan they established in the late-Nineties. Polaris, due April 22nd, follows the band's 2000 debut, Shake Hands With Shorty, and 2001's 51 Phantom.

"As we were working on the first record, we knew that we'd do it, produce it by ourselves and it'd be mainly covers," says singer/guitarist Luther Dickinson. "We also knew the second record would be produced with our dad [legendary producer/sideman Jim Dickinson] and be originals and the third record would be the big concept record [laughs], the big one."

The band -- now a four piece including Luther, his drummer/guitarist/vocalist brother Cody, bassist Chris Chew and guitarist Duwayne Burnside -- recently returned from Abbey Road Studio in the U.K., where the album was mastered, resulting in a last minute guest appearance by Oasis' Noel Gallagher, who appears on the title track and "One to Grow On." The mastering process, however, was less nomadic than the album's creation. The All-Stars are genuine road warriors, logging north of 200 gigs per year, a commitment to performing that doesn't always jive with a prolific release schedule of an album every year-and-a-half. "We both wrote a lot of this on the road," Luther says. "When we started working on this record, we thought, we have to get a computer. So Cody was recording vocals in the van while we were at sound check. Some of it was recorded in hotel rooms."

"One of the things I want to get across is that sense of 'How did they do that?,'" Cody says. "I think people are also gonna think, 'When did they do that?' when they listen to this record, because we tour constantly. The truth of it is we did a lot of it on the road, and that gives the music an energy and life of its own. "

The band's exuberant pace stands in contrast to that of their father, who released his latest solo album, Free Beer Tomorrow, last year. That release was his first since Dixie Fried three decades before. But if Luther and Cody didn't exactly absorb their father's pace ("He's a master of building anticipation," Cody says), they did inherit his taste. Jim Dickinson's Gump-like resume includes playing and producing for acts including the Rolling Stones, the Replacements, Big Star, the Flamin' Groovies and Ry Cooder.

Like Dickinson, the North Mississippi All-Stars play with musical colors like a prism. "Hopefully we can be something like the Band," Luther says, "where you have three or four vocalists and different identities within the group, and the way we play and approach it keeps it from the same family. It's all related even though it sounds different. We kind of reached back to some of the influences growing up like Big Star and the Replacements. This album is just good old North Mississippi All-Stars: There's some hill country blues, there's a little gospel, there's psychedelic pop, some punk rock, and southern rock. I think it's pretty much, unashamedly 'new southern rock.'"

"We wanted it to reflect the music we loved," Cody adds. "This CD is a diverse piece of work. There's also some Memphis hard-hitting blues boogie, Mississippi hill country songs; something for everyone. Make songs you like, period. That's what we do."

And as for the C-word, Polaris doesn't smack of the Seventies song-cycles about spaceships, hobos or blind pinball players, but rather family. "We said in 1999 that it'd be the concept record," Luther says, "and the concept turned out to be brotherhood and family collaboration. We were working on each other's songs. 'The One Thing,' I wrote half of it, Cody wrote the instrumental section, and it's a classic 'A Day in the Life,' just smash 'em together. And It was really great working with our dad. He's credited as 'creative consultant.' But he'd hang out with us and he always helps us edit lyrics. He played some great keyboards, piano, mellotron. This has been an extremely harmonious experience and hopefully you can feel it. You can get the vibe off the record. We're extremely old-fashioned I guess."

And the group shows no signs of slowing down. On February 27th, Luther and Cody will join Widespread Panic keyboardist John Hermann for a string of fifteen tour dates with his Smiling Assassin side project. They take six days off between the end of that tour and starting a seventeen-date stretch with the All-Stars, starting March 23rd, including a stop at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. There's also the Grammys this weekend, where the band is up for two awards for 51 Phantom. And then, of course, there's likely another album to start conceptualizing. Says Luther, "I think the way we're feeling it now, the next record will be longer songs; more live, more raw. We were always shooting for the Electric Ladyland. We wanna make the ultimately psychedelic blues record."

Track listing for Polaris:

Eyes

Meet Me In The City

The One Thing

All Alone

Otay

Kids These Daze

One To Grow On

Hard To Please

Bad Bad Pain

Polaris

Time For The Sun To Rise

Be So Glad

[CyberHippie]

4 words:

Electric Washboard With Wawa...

Oh yeah!