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Rock band still heads South to recharge culturally

BY KEITH RYAN CARTWRIGHT

PROVIDED

The North Mississippi Allstars play a show at The Pour House this week.

Cody Dickinson fondly remembers two things about Charleston, "the dancing and the beautiful girls in the South."

"Audiences in South Carolina might not be the politest," said Dickinson, who is one-third of the North Mississippi Allstars, "but they certainly get down and have fun, and they do respond to the music."

And the Allstars know a thing or two about getting down in the Lowcountry.

Back when the band was first getting started — 1996 — they did a residency in Charleston every Thursday night, and have been coming back ever since. This time they'll be headlining a show at The Pour House on Wednesday.

It was during that residency 12 years ago the guys — Cody, his brother Luther and their longtime friend Chris Chew — learned how to stretch the songs out and, more importantly, improvise.

They also built up what the Dickinsons, who happen to be the sons of legendary record producer, pianist and singer James Luther Dickinson, "a solid vocabulary of songs" the band would intertwine with transitions.

"That's where we came up with a lot of stuff — on stage," Cody said. "The more we do it, the stronger the shows get.

"We were going down there and learning how to play the circuit, playing in front of intimate audiences and now the shows are bigger, but it's still the same.

"The relationship we have with the audience," he continued, "pushes us to get better all the time."

Five albums into the band's career — the group recently released "Hernando," the follow-up to "Electric Blue Watermelon" — the North Mississippi Allstars have long since established a national and international presence.

While the band admits it has a greater connection with audiences in the South and Southeast — the group still lives in their native Mississippi as a way to recharge culturally — they also enjoy the various experiences throughout the country and around the world.

Nevertheless, there's something special to be said for coming home to the South.

"They get down and they shake it," Cody said, "which makes my job a lot easier. If people are dancing, that means I'm doing my job."

At this point, the majority of the people who come to the band's shows have seen them before.

While certain things definitely make it new and fresh, it's really more about refining what it is they do, which is precisely why this time the group wanted "Hernando" to be more of a nouveau/retro sounding project.

Working again with their father as the producer, the band demoed material for the first time in an effort to "chop off some fat," and as Luther pointed out, "You know how dad likes to do it — we got in there and slammed it out live."

What they got was an amalgamation of power-trio blues in the vein of Cream, swamp blues and, of course, some Chuck Berry-like, old-time rock 'n' roll.

The vastness of their career — it's been seven years since they emerged with their debut "51 Phantom" — might be a bit unexpected, but at the same time the trio never really pictured themselves doing anything else. They've been lucky, so to speak, as to how their career has unfolded.

They'll continue in support of "Hernando," and Luther also will tour as a guitar player with the Black Crowe's, whom he recently recorded with.

Later this year the North Mississippi Allstars will be releasing a three-disc — two CDs and one DVD — retrospective of the band's career titled "Do It Like We Used to Do."

That said, it really is about doing it like they used to, which is why they're so looking forward to coming back to Charleston.

"I can't help it," said Cody, who used to visit often when he had a friend who attended The Citadel, "but I just remember all the girls in that city are amazing."

Keith Ryan Cartwright is a Colorado-based freelance entertainment journalist.