 While one would hope the legendary Memphis musician,
producer, and incorrigible raconteur Jim Dickinson
needs no introduction to most of our readers,
the truth is he isn't exactly a household name,
but rather one of the great cult figures in the
history of southern rock. But whether you know
the name or not, you have heard his music. Many
times, in fact.
orn in Arkansas in 1941, Jim Dickinson was
playing that 'wild Negro music' before most
white boys in the Delta. Best buds with Stax
Records owner's son Packy Axton, he was excluded
from recording at Stax (Packy being on the
outs with the staff), but sang lead vocals
on the last record released on Sun Records, "Cadillac
Man" by The Jesters, a legendary track.
After fronting several local bands, he was
a founding member of the Dixie Flyers, who
went on to be the house band at Muscle Shoals
studios in Alabama in the early '70s, backing
artists like Aretha Franklin, Ronnie Milsap,
Claudia Lennear, and Maria Muldaur. He played
piano on the Rolling Stones' FM staple "Wild
Horses" and appeared in the film Gimme
Shelter (as Dickinson said: "I went to
film school at Baylor, so when they started
setting up lights pointing at a couch in the
studio, I knew what was going on, and I went
over and sat down. And I had the last joint,
and Keith [Richards] knew I had the last joint,
so he came over and sat down beside me. And
that's how I got in the film.") He also
played piano on The Flamin' Groovies epochal
masterpiece Teenage Head around the same time.
He went on to be Ry Cooder's musical sidekick
in a slew of film soundtracks including Paris,
Texas, The Long Riders, and Crossroads (the
Robert Johnson film, not the Britney one),
and his song "Across the Borderline" was
cut by Willie Nelson and performed by Bob Dylan
at Farm Aid ("that paved my driveway," he
joked). He formed the last great Memphis all-star
supergroup, Mud Boy and the Neutrons, and provoked
near-riots and incidents for years in Memphis.
He produced Big Star Third/Sister Lovers for
Alex Chilton and Big Star, one of the most
influential albums of the '70s. His production
work on Sister Lovers and on Austin's True
Believers in 1985 (arguably the best hard rock,
3-guitar band of the '80s) led to jobs as producer
for The Replacements, The Gunbunnies, Jason & the
Scorchers, Green on Red, The Radiators, Alvin
Youngblood Hart, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Mudhoney,
Toots Hibbert (of the Maytals), The Texas Tornados
(with Doug Sahm & Freddie Fender), Steve
Forbert, G. Love & Special Sauce, Joe "King" Carrasco & the
Crowns, Barrence Whitfield & the Savages,
Dash Riprock, and many others. As a session
musician, he's worked with Bob Dylan, Los Lobos,
Primal Scream, Poi Dog Pondering, Delaney and
Bonnie, Petula Clark, Rocket From the Crypt,
and many many more.
Dickinson's first solo album, released in
1972 on Atlantic (who employed The Dixie Flyers),
was entitled Dixie Fried, and has become a
cult classic, one of the most endearingly off-center
records in many fans' collections. It's just
been reissued (on Sepia Tone), and his first
new solo album in 30 years, Free Beer Tomorrow
(Artemis Records) has just been released in
the fall of 2002, making some year-end Best
Of lists (mine included). It follows gleefully
in the footsteps of Dixie Fried. Dickinson
is accompanied by his boys, Luther and Cody,
nowadays better known as 2/3 of the North Mississippi
All-Stars, both in their 20s and becoming nationally
recognized as musicians and producers in their
own right. Having been acquainted with the
Dickinsons for several decades now, it was
a delight as always to catch up with him on
his new album the weekend after Thanksgiving,
2002. Here's the parts we can print, in James
Luther Dickinson's own words, mainly dealing
with some of his extraordinarily obscure and
eclectic choices of material to cover, and
how the new record came to be....
The cover photograph is of a sign at a cafe
in Memphis called The Green Beetle. It's
a childhood memory. I assumed I knew where
it was, but I didn't, so I had to dig up
a picture of the thing. It's been gone for
many years. I'm really pleased with what
I got, but it's not exactly what I had planned.
I've had that cover planned for 30 years.
That's where the sign was that said "Free
Beer Tomorrow." My father took me in
there as a kid, and some things you never
forget.
Stanley Booth played that for me years ago.
Like several of the other songs on the record,
I basically considered it unrecordable until
I found the handle on it. On Dave Hickey's
original version, which I gather had never
been released -- it must have been just some
kind of a demo -- he sings it like an Elizabethan
ballad with a 12-string and a cello and an
oboe, and it's very different. But when I got
to that Jack Kerouac/Steve Allen version of
it I found something I could relate to, plus
I really like recitation, I wanted to do some
kind of a semi-recitation on the record, and
I figured I could do "Billy and Oscar" that
way. I formulate a record, especially after
it's done when I'm sequencing it, based on
a Tex Ritter album I had when I was a kid (when
I say album, it was a series of 78s). It was
called Cowboy Tex Ritter Sings Children's Songs
and Stories. It had "Billy The Kid" and "Wreck
of the Old 97" and it had this recitation
called "The Phantom White Stallion of
Skull Valley." If I live to make a third
record, that'll be on it.
Before I considered recording "Oscar
and Billy," I just listened to it. I'd
listen to it about once every six months just
to make myself feel better about being a human
being. I kinda think it does that. It strikes
a familiar deja vu note in your mind that's
almost like, 'oh yeah, I heard that story somewhere.'
I don't know, it's just about heroes. And heroes
are not all Spider-Man. Billy and Oscar are
both heroic. Nothing's more noble than meeting
in a whorehouse. I have a dear friend that
I met in a whorehouse in Nashville, and I'm
sure we'll be friends 'til the end.
It's the one performance/style I can't repeat.
I tried to repeat the form of Dixie Fried
when I was doing this record, and there's
nothing comparable to "O How She Dances," it's
one of a kind.
I saw Blaze Foley only once, at the Austin
Music Awards during SXSW one year. He was
all covered in duct tape. I didn't know who
he was when I saw him. I didn't really get
into him until [after] he was dead, when
I was working with [Austin artist] Calvin
Russell [as a producer]. Calvin had a lot
of tapes of Blaze live. It took me a while
to get a copy of the Lost Art sessions and
things that he did at Willie's. I ended up
with a nice collection of his stuff. Truly
a remarkable artist. "If I Could Only
Fly" is my favorite song that I've ever
heard. I played it last night at a gig in
Memphis with my boys. It says something to
me.
There was one particular guy who hung around
the sessions, I never did know his name, and
he had a lot of Blaze's tapes. Calvin had a
lot of criminal-type friends, and you didn't
want to ask too many questions. For every miracle
like Bob Dylan there's probably five thousand
horror stories like Eddie Hinton or Blaze Foley.
Those songs just haunt me. It's on a scale
that the best voices in the world just couldn't
record -- where the better you get the harder
it is. Blaze is just an incomparable talent
when you hear all of his songs. Of course,
he's best known for his comedy songs. But as
deep as the comedy goes, so goes the tragedy.
The serious songs are just unbelievable. The
reason I recorded it, although I would have
recorded it anyway -- at the time I started
this record -- which was seven years ago --
all of Blaze Foley's work was tied up contractually.
And "If I Could Only Fly" had been
recorded by Willie and Merle years ago, so
it had been cleared as a published song. But
not taking away from Merle Haggard's version,
he doesn't have the chromatic guitar part in
there, which I found on an Austin tape. That
chromatic walk up on the guitar right before
the chorus sounds just like Willie, and that's
just a signature of the song to me. That's
what sets it all up. But you know, a lot of
Blaze's songs, at the heart of them he was
trying to pick a girl up in a bar so that he'd
have a place to stay that night, you know?
And that element is in this song. In the first
verse, I think he's clearly addressing his
mental condition. I think he's singing about
being crazy, and that really appeals to me.
It very definitely was. I'd like to say this
record was more spontaneous than it is, but
it was all too thought out. So at this point,
32 years later after I played on "Wild
Horses," I'm 61 years old now, I made
this record to an extent for the fans in the
stands. They may not be legion, but they're
there. And they have expectations. So, as you
said earlier, I referenced Dixie Fried, I tried
to reference my film work with Ry Cooder, I
tried to reference Big Star Third, which is
harder to hear because it's all technical stuff,
like depth of echo and that kind of thing.
But I figured that I had fans out there of
these other projects, so I did try to reference
them.
An early photo from Muscle Shoals, Dickinson
on the far right. Early '70s.
Eddie Hinton ... I wish I knew what happened
to Eddie. Roger Hawkins said he just couldn't
deal with the rejection, and he never got
anything but rejection. His health just failed
him and he died. He died on the commode like
Elvis, which is where the similarity ends
lifewise. He was at his mama's house, completely
broke and destitute. He played on my Toots
in Memphis record (Dickinson produced a brilliant
album for Toots Hibbert of the reggae greats
The Maytals some years back); he didn't even
own a guitar. Way back when I was feeling
really frustrated, I would think about Eddie
or Teenie Hodges, and think about how they
must feel. I never saw more talent in any
one person than Eddie Hinton had. And again,
it's that same story, that the better you
are, the harder it is. Whatever it is that
makes crazy white boys want to sing black
music, Eddie had more of it than the rest
of us. I don't know, maybe he had too much.
And there's another song, "Well of Love," that
I had considered unrecordable until we got
that arrangement. I was trying to record
another Eddie Hinton song, "Every Natural
Thing," and had no luck with it, and
Luther suggested 'why don't you try "Well
of Love".' I had a hand-written set
of the lyrics that Eddie had written himself,
so I figured it was worth a shot. I think
we got close. It doesn't have the animal
desperation of Eddie's version.
I've wanted to record that Holy Modal Rounders
song since before Dixie Fried. It's a song
that I couldn't get the Dixie Flyers to play
[on that album, where they were the backing
band]. I saw the Rounders in '63 in Cambridge,
along with Kweskin's Jug Band, and it was real
important to me to see these Yankees playing
my music, so I figured I better get busy. [According
to Nick Tosches' liner notes, "Bound To
Lose" was written by Peter Stampfel of
the Rounders, who released it in 1963, but
Stampfel told Dickinson that Bob Dylan had
written the song. When Dickinson worked with
Dylan on Time Out of Mind, he had the opportunity
to ask Dylan about the song, and Dylan said: "Peter
Stampfel wrote it. Is he still crazy?"]
That's exactly what Dylan said -- 'is he still
crazy?' I think from what Tosches said that
Dylan did write the song. That he's just passing
it on.
"
Asshole" was written by Mark Unobsky.
I went to high school with him. Of all the
crazy white boys trying to play acoustic blues,
he was the best of them. He makes Cooder sound
like he's playing the ukelele. He's dead now.
He lived in San Francisco for years. He wrote
some songs, but he couldn't publish 'em 'cause
he was on disability. He basically had a lifetime
income of selling guns and dope to the Grateful
Dead. I first heard that song in the '70s,
and I thought "God, what a wonderful song,
but nobody'll ever hear it." And they
are literally playing it on the radio now.
That's how much the world has changed. They've
played it in Seattle, in Minneapolis, and they
played it in Memphis last Sunday. It's a love
song about a woman. "...We're in agreement
on my soul..." [rhyming with 'asshole']
is what gets me. This guy was a weapons expert.
Back in the '50s when everybody had a switchblade,
he had a switchblade with four buttons and
four blades. Shit jumped out of it everywhere.
He was a remarkable human being, and an amazing
guitar player. I don't know whether you've
every heard my skinflick music for Great Big
Fish which was released on soundtrack in France,
but he's playing guitar on it, with the Bar-Kays.
He was an amazing musician, and [was] almost
completely unrecorded. He was the manager of
The Charlatans in San Francisco in the '60s
[the brilliant cult band with Dan Hicks and
Mike Wilhelm], had the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia
City, Colorado [which was where the San Francisco
scene was born]. The Charlatans were his house
band, and he also supposedly was the first
person outside of Texas to employ Janis Joplin.
He had the first psychedelic light show and
night club. "Asshole" is by far his
best composition. With the arrangement for
that song, I was trying to reference various
things from my past. There was a guy on the
original Today show who played live with his
band, called Art Van Damme, and the Art Van
Damme Quintet. They had vibes and accordion
together, and that's what I was referencing
there, and showcasing that fiddle player, a
local guy that I think is a fabulous soloist.
And of course that's Luther playing slide.
He's playing a guitar that Unobsky, the author
of the song, left him in his will. Unobsky
is basically behind the formation of the North
Mississippi All-Stars. He talked to Luther
about the idea of playing the Delta Blues with
a power trio. That's where Luther got it. He
was a very private man who didn't have many
friends. Not only do I treasure his friendship,
but he was a big help to Luther, when he didn't
have to be.
I played a few rhythm guitar parts [on the
new album], but all of the slide and mandolin
and fancy stuff is my son Luther.
Well, there wouldn't have been a record if
it weren't for them. I don't think I would
have been motivated to do it if it weren't
for them. Part of it was not just a route
to music education but a kind of an education
in '70s recording techniques, which is the
way I still do it. We did it in a home studio
over a big period of time. I don't think
either of their two records [The North Mississippi
All-Stars] would have been made without this
record being made either.
"
Hungry Town" is a Chuck Prophet song [Dickinson
had produced Prophet's first band, Green on
Red]. He played me a demo of it originally.
I have three or four different versions of
the song, and they all have different lyrics.
So I put the lyrics together on my own and
I kinda personalized it. Chuck's an old buddy,
and I had another song of his I was trying
to cut, but "Hungry Town" just kinda
talked to me. That's what I do as a producer
is let the songs talk to me. These songs [on
the album] are the songs that have the most
to say.
My version is derived from Furry Lewis. I have
a real soft spot for all of Stephen Foster's
music, but my version is closer to Furry
Lewis'. It's another song I take real seriously,
and have planned to record for a really long
time.
Well, I got no real piano in my studio, just
an electric piano, and I got no Hammond B3,
so I had to go somewhere else to do the keyboard
parts, and the best piano in Memphis is at
Sam Phillips', plus I love working with Roland.
I just did keyboard overdubs there. I was having
trouble with myself as a player. Me as a producer
getting from me as a sideman what me as an
artist wants was hard, let me tell you. As
a keyboard player, when I walk into a session,
I've never heard the song before, so I can
honestly respond, and get a spontaneous performance.
And there's no possibility of that with my
material. So I had to kind of vicariously use
Roland to steel the performances.
Dixie Fried just disappeared without a trace.
I made it in '70, and it didn't come out
until '72, and by the time it came out, I
was so immersed in Cooder's career, that
it was a non-event to me. I read the reviews,
and that was about it. I never played a gig
behind it. And by that time I was so hated
at Atlantic that they didn't give me anything.
They gave me what was referred to as "the
Jesse Davis treatment," or to quote
Jerry Wexler, "right down the old pipe,
baby." That's pretty much what happened
to it. And I think it was circulated amongst
the underground among the drug community
for many years, and it reached whatever level
of notoriety that it's achieved. I realized
when I went to Europe with Cooder that there
were people where who had it. As far as I
know, it was never released in Europe. A
guy came backstage in Milan with a copy for
me to sign, and I was just joking, and said "Oh,
you must have the only copy in Milan," and
he took me seriously and said "oh no,
I have a friend who has a copy, too." I
can see him sitting around in his weird little
apartment in Milan listening to Dixie Fried.
I love that! When its first CD release in
Japan a few years ago came out, it wasn't
a reissue in Japan -- it had never come out,
it was a new record! Isn't that crazy!? And
the Japanese CD sounds better than the damned
playback in the studio. There's a new US
release on CD on Sepia Tone. He did reissues
by Tony Joe White, Curtis Mayfield, and some
other obscure stuff he liked off Atlantic.
There'd been a severe problem getting it
released for reissue, but somehow Cash Booth
got around it. It's got Stanley Booth liner
notes, which are all too revealing, and the
original art, which is also revealing.
A lot of people, my family included, didn't
think the album was ever going to be finished.
But I was always going to finish it.
Harmonica Frank Floyd is what I always say.
It's the safest thing to say.
T
I always say the same thing when asked the
same question, but I've gotta keep saying that
I know I learned more from them than they learned
from me. I worked with Tommy Stinson again
13 years later on a solo project that never
came out and now, as a result of Guns 'n' Roses
never will, and he quoted me things that I
had said to him 13 years before -- complete
sentences from 13 years before. He took me
seriously. As I take him seriously. He's my
favorite of all the young musicians I ever
worked with by far. Westerberg is the most
sensitive solo artist I ever worked with. The
great tragedy for me was that I didn't get
to work with Bob [Stinson]. I told them all
through the process "bring me Bob, I like
'em hairy and scary," and they wouldn't
do it. They'd make the sign of the cross, you
know. Westerberg still had nightmares about
him. I wanted to call the album "Where's
Bob?" but nobody thought that was funny.
I said "that's what everybody's gonna
ask you man, you might as well get used to
it."
[laughing, "Kangaroo"'s] about an
encounter with a certain female, I'll go that
far. [Regarding Big Star, and who wrote what
on Chris Bell's solo album,] I've known Chris
Bell since he was a little kid. And Alex isn't
much of a collaborator with anybody. I'll bet
a lot of Chris' songs were written 'in secret,'
not with Alex. And I do think a lot of those
songs are them talking back and forth to each
other. But I think that the biggest influence
on their songwriting -- both of them -- was
really Terry Manning [Ardent producer/manager/guitarist,
whose solo album in 1970 marked Chris Bell's
recorded debut]. The chord progressions and
stuff come from Terry Manning. The thing that
people miss about Chris Bell is that he didn't
give a shit. He didn't give a shit about the
band, about the fact that Alex took it away
from him, about anything, really. The guy didn't
care. It wasn't even a negative thing, it was
just the way his personality was. He just didn't
care. People never get that. Because of that,
the songs are almost third person to me. They're
all observation.
It's amazing. Once again, when I went to Europe
with Cooder, anybody who knew enough to come
back stage and talk to me about anything,
talked to me about that record, which at
that time hadn't even been released. It's
for sure the most significant thing in what
they laughingly refer to in my career. It's
the one. It's the thing that stands out and
brings me the most work. God knows I'm proud
of it, it's still an amazing record. People
who say I indulged Alex can kiss my ass,
frankly. Maybe I did, but if I did, it was
about time somebody did. All I did was remove
the yoke of oppressive production, and show
him the possibilities of getting music that
was in his mind and in his soul, out.
Wouldn't
you like to see somebody let Alex Chilton
go back in the studio and do a 'produced
record' and really TRY? All he's done for the
last 15 years is go in quickly and cut tracks
live in 1-3 takes.
I'd love it. In fact I've had some dreams in
the last six-seven months. Normally if I have
studio dreams, they're my worst nightmares.
But I've had these three dreams about being
back in the studio with Alex, and whole songs
have been in my dreams. A good experience.
So I don't know, it could happen. Alex is not
gonna write a few songs for an album, if he
sits down to write songs he's gonna write 30
or 40, and I hope he remembers my phone number.
Again, there are fans of the thing that we
do together out there. God knows that he has
plenty of fans on his own. But we have fans
in common, and we owe something to those people.
Listen to Beck's new record, for God's sake.
You think they haven't been listening to Sister
Lovers? And not just Beck, but his ol' daddy,
too, I mean those string arrangements are awful
familiar. There's another person who never
receives any credit for Sister Lovers - Carl
Marsh. Those string parts are brilliant, "Nighttime" especially.
I wish I could say I knew what he was doing
when he wrote them. That album, by the way,
was always considered a Big Star record when
we were recording it. It was definitely not
intended as an Alex Chilton solo record like
some people have written. And the only title
I remember Alex discussing for it was Beale
Street Green.
I was thinking about what you said the last
time we talked, and if there's one thing
I'd like to accomplish in my career, it's
this: I'd like to use my Baylor Film School
training [Dickinson went to university at
Baylor in Waco, Texas, birthplace of Big
Red, Dr Pepper, the Branch Davidians, and
the spiritual home of the Southern Baptists]
and direct the film version of Andrew Lloyd
Webber's Phantom of the Opera starring Ozzy
Osbourne in the title role. Can't you just
see that [laughing]!?
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