Jim Dickinson - S&D

back in 2005 I virtually had front row seats for a special Memphis/Mudboy revival night that Robert Gordon put on at the Barbican, w/ Dickinson, Sid Selvidge, the great Jimmy Crosthwait on washboard, Tav Falco, Jody Stephens, Mississippi AllStars etc etc. A wonderful show, and although Jim was very heavy and obviously not in the best of health even then, there was nothing wrong w/ his singing or piano playing. Bobby Gillespie and Jason Pierce came on at the end, and although there was something gross in that, there was something sincere abt their appearance too - a sign of the special affectation that Brits have long held for Jim Dickinson and his music, stretching all the way back to the Byrds. RIP.

Unfortunately the performance Dickinson did in William Eggleston's video piece "Stranded In Canton" is nowhere to be found on the internet. I can't remember what song he plays, just that it's drunken and great.

I love so much of his music. All the Dixie Fliers stuff (there's a great Varese Sarabande CD of all their sessions with Bettye Lavette), Mudboy & The Neutrons (the couple of tracks they did on Sid Selvidge's second LP are amaaaaazing), Big Star 3rd, Pleased To Meet Me... and Dixie Fried is such a tremendously great record. I've even enjoyed a lot of his recent stuff, especially Spectrum Meets Captain Memphis...

R.I.P.

Anyone heard the Curse Of The Alphastone record he references in the PSF interview?

Spiritualized was funny because the thing that brought that guy to me was so obscure - I did a skinflick soundtrack called Curse Of The Alphastone - and I've noticed that all of the Spacemen 3 have used the term "Alphastone" or mentioned it in the press. Where they heard it, I don't know but - Jason Pierce for sure - had obviously been tremendously affected by this one piece of music that I did. I don't think that he got what he wanted from me but he had gone about constructing the music in an entirely different manner than I had. I doubt that my mix will ever come out, he wanted an electronically affected mix, that's what his heart was in. When I did ...Alphastone, I was trying to make a fucking record for $1,500 and I had some drum loops from The Bar-Kays, some horn parts and I started putting crap on top of it, it was the only thing I could possibly do! *Laughs* That's what house music sounds like to me! I don't know, the simplistic aspect of it is very seductive but I haven't yet heard anything that's talking to me. I mean, pop music is based on inane repetition but, to me, hypnotic repetition has to be performed, it can't be electronic or synthesized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g69labQKuuU

http://www.zebraranch.com/images/Jim_&_Keith.jpg

(and thank god he replaced those awful harmonics with his piano playing)

ugh - dang 2009 is harsh huh? ... kind of 'the' memphis music pro that all musician's respect and love - RIP ...

Got to see him, Luther and Cody in an acoustic trio called Gutbucket. Very laid back, lots of fun. RIP.

Anyone heard the Curse Of The Alphastone record he references in the PSF interview?

yeah, i heard that; it's on the 'spring poems' cd of various stuff he collected a few years back - is good, kinda porno with flailing horns. haven't heard it for a while. do not get the thing upthread about it being perverse that those guys were on stage with him? i was at the hi records night from that season and always regretted not seeing the memphis guys; apparently dickinson started with O HOW SHE DANCES.

anyhow, sad, he was a great guy & real character. one of those guys who could use the word motherfucker in so many different ways, like about a piano part or about aretha franklin but in a nice way

Memory playing tricks -- Gutbucket was DDT playing acoustic, and Daddy Dickinson sat in as a 4th on this particular occasion... I remember Luther finishing a solo on one song and Jim leaned forward and said "Makes a daddy proud..."

worked at square books in oxford, ms where i watched him perform every thursday on thacker mountain radio. he led the house band, the yalobushwackers. great great dude.

whoah fuck

RIP

Shared by Big Star & Ardent on FB today, Holy Shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om5uVvIMM2s

the klitz! awesome.

listening to Like Flies on Sherbert and Dixie Fried back-to-back is a cosmic experience that enhances my enjoyment of both (somewhat uneven) albums.

"new" album coming out in July
http://www.jambands.com/images/2012/05/08/35535/clip_image006-353x.png

According to Oxford American: This month, Omnivore Recordings reissued a forgotten Memphis classic, a kind of conceptual compilation called Beale Street Saturday Night, produced by Jim Dickinson in 1979.

100 great records from Memphis

a related thread

was just checking this out: http://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/555-the-search-for-blind-lemon

I need to read that whole thing. Its long. This bit was fascinating:

Just outside the door in the alleyway, four black men were playing music. A four-string tenor guitar, a violin, a man tapping a washboard with drumsticks, and a man singing and thumping a string tied to a broomstick and run through a washtub. They were making the strangest music I had ever heard. The men were dressed like field hands or hobos. There was a white couple jitterbugging in the alley acting drunk, as the tall thin man with the washtub bass sang, “Come on down to my house, honey, ain’t nobody home but me.”

He laughed and went down low on the broomstick and shouted, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” and laughed some more. I was hypnotized. It was like being hit over the head. Never in my short life had I heard anything that so moved me. It was like music from heaven, yet these men were clearly not the angels described to me in my mother’s church.

After the one song, my father put a dollar bill in the coffee can in front of them and made me leave. But I carried the words and music with me. I can hear it now, more than fifty years later. After that experience, other things in life just did not seem important, only finding that magic music.

yeah this is great...
What did you think of the tape?” I asked.

“Great, man! Great. The record comes out Thursday. Chet Atkins tried to buy it. It’s a hit.”

“Record?” I choked. “That was a demo.”

“Oh, man, you could never do it that bad again,” Bill said.

“Bill, you have no idea how bad I could do it,” I said, with all my heart.

“What’s that playing bass?” he asked.

“That’s a washtub and a clothesline tied to a broom stick,” I answered.

“A rope! A rope!” Justis shouted. “I went all over Nashville trying to EQ a rope!”

so this memoir hasn't actually been published, right?

in full, i mean

yeah idg why this is appearing now, what's the deal?

To celebrate the rerelease of this album and to further distribute the good gospel of Jim Dickinson, the Oxford American is pleased to present Dickinson’s “The Search for Blind Lemon,” which appeared in our 2013 Tennessee Music Issue.

Just finished Man Called Destruction, Chilton's (incredibly good, sad, disturbing, etc) bio, and Jim's parts are down the line fantastic. Such a way with words and stories and myth-building/breaking. I might have to listen to more of his music one day. This thread can help point me where to start.

Dixie Fried, Like Flies on Sherbert

yeah dixie fried is classic. need to check out the memphis blues festival thing.

Anyone heard the Curse Of The Alphastone record he references in the PSF interview?

can anyone dig this up...? v curious to hear it

what I said goes for Alex's solo stuff and his other projects post-BS too. So yeah, need to check out FoS and other stuff as well.

http://therobertgordon.com/books/it-came-from-memphis/

read this book too, if you ever get a chance to see the unreleased video & film clip collection Gordon put together in support of the book, see that too

kinda surprised Dickinson and the Cramps never worked together, given the Chilton connection

they did!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqg0YVyieMw

xp That book has been on my too-read list, as has Tav Falco's Mondo Memphis stuff. Think he's done Vol 2 of that by now?

wait waht tyler what is the story with that!

I thought I had all the early Cramps stuff

Wiki says : recorded a one-off single ("Red Headed Woman") with The Cramps in 1984

yeah that's all i know! heard it on some homemade cramps rarities comp a million years ago.

whoa stop the presses, a Cramps record from 1984 that I haven't heard

hmm the single is not on Discogs but this comp has it:

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Rockabilly-Psychosis-And-The-Garage-Disease/master/340231

on youtube i think

x-post

Curse of the Alphastone sdtrk mentioned here, but have never heard it

http://koti.mbnet.fi/wdd/jimdickinson.htm

FAN CLUB FC 064/NR 761/FC 064CD

JIM DICKINSON: DELTA EXPERIMENTAL PROJECTS COMPILATION, VOL.2: SPRING POEMS (LP/CD)
(a collection of songs from the motion picture soundtracks arranged and conducted by James Luther Dickinson: The Great Big Fish a) Beale Street Green b) The Saucers Are Landing c) Delta Getaway / The Curse Of The Alpha Stone a) Cross Talk b) Skin It Back c) Velvet Woman Painters Of The South (Ol' Miss Center For Study Of Southern Culture) a) Campton Races/Catfish Blues b) Beautiful Dreamer Southern Dust (University Of Texas Films, Austin TX) a) Hose Job b) Choke The Chicken c) Death Is A Fat Cop Down a) Max By The Tracks b) Live Bait c) Brass Monkey; cd-reissue with 'Vol.1: The Blues')

1990

His book is just yarn after yarn after yarn, with so many names flying in and out for a paragraph or two, it's hard to keep up. But then for a few years there he's playing on Spirit in the Dark or Wild Horses or Flamin' Groovies or with someone I'd never heard of let alone heard before. He ends more than a couple asides with "But that's another story" and it's a bummer those didn't make it in, too. Worth picking up.

Interesting. Will add it to my list of books to read

Great thread, hadn't seen it before. Also JD on the main Big Star and Chilton threads o course. Mentioned these 2017 releases in my Nashville Scene ballot comments I always add these imaginary categories):

Related Genealogically As Well As Musically Hon. Mention:
North Mississippi Allstars: Prayer For Peace, James Luther Dickinson: I’m Just Dead, I’m Not Gone: Lazarus Edition (also a Related Reissue)
North Mississippi Allstars wheel Dad through the Afterlife and vice-versa one more time, with bonus pepper candy encores. They also provide strong support for Rev. Sekou and themselves, on two albums (incl. the Rev.'s Related Top Ten In Times Like these) where the personal and political and tropes and rhetoric and blues and gospel and other strands of history and right nows are always ticking and clattering and pumping, and he’s the one with the compelling voice and eye. Dad rules his own album, natcherlly, more than ever with the added tracks. Not great but worth streaming.

Listened to his book through my local public library over a two day marathon binge. Really fantastic.

Updated xpost It Came From Memphis came out in November, editorial thing on Amazon says yeah you get Elvis and shit, but the emphasis is on the singular achievements of Alex Chilton, Jim Dickinson, Furry Lewis and wrestler Sputnik Monroe. This is a book about the weirdos, winos and midget wrestlers who forged the rock and roll spirit, unwittingly changing the fabric of America. Music liberated that Memphis audience, and the world followed.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71VEPxZCJIL.jpg

Also, another Gordon book, Memphis Rent Party, has stuff about Dickinson and Chilton--dunno if he recycles any of it:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81EIppBYjvL.jpg