North Mississippi Allstars

Who Are They?

North Mississippi Allstars are a band built on an accident of geography. Brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson grew up outside Memphis, close enough to the North Mississippi hill country to learn the blues directly from the last men who invented it: R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Otha Turner.

Hill country blues is not the twelve-bar Delta blues most people picture. It is droning, one-chord, hypnotic, built for all-night dancing rather than lonesome contemplation. The Allstars took that trance and cranked it through electric guitars and a rock rhythm section, keeping the hypnosis and adding the volume.

The result is a band that can headline a blues festival and a jam festival in the same summer, because they belong to both. Underneath it is a genuine inheritance: this is family music, learned on porches, played loud.

The Story

A quarter century of carrying a regional tradition to a national audience, and four Grammy nominations along the way.

1. 1996

   The band forms in Hernando, Mississippi

   Guitarist Luther Dickinson and drummer Cody Dickinson, sons of the Memphis producer and musician Jim Dickinson, form the band with bassist Chris Chew, playing the hill country blues they learned firsthand.

2. 2000

   Shake Hands with Shorty

   The debut is almost entirely hill country blues standards, played loud and electric. It earns a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album and announces the whole project.

3. 2001

   51 Phantom

   A second straight Grammy nomination, and the sound getting heavier and more original as the band moves from covers toward its own songs.

4. 2005

   Electric Blue Watermelon

   A third Grammy nomination, and the record that brings the elders into the room, with guest appearances from R.L. Burnside and Otha Turner tying the band directly back to its teachers.

5. 2013

   World Boogie Is Coming

   A full return to the deep hill country repertoire, recorded loose and raw, and one of the best distillations of what the band does live.

6. 2019

   Up and Rolling

   A fourth Grammy nomination, built partly around photographs from a 1996 hill country field trip, closing the loop on where they came from.

7. 2022

   Set Sail

   A looser, groove-forward record that shows the band still moving, decades in, without ever losing the hill country pulse.

Start Here

One studio track and two live cuts, in order. Watch the trance take hold.

The Albums 5 to start with

The catalog runs from faithful hill country covers to loose, original boogie. Start with these five.

Playlists

One curated YouTube Music playlist of North Mississippi Allstars essentials, the way into the boogie.

The Band

At its core the band is two brothers and a family legacy, with the lineup around them shifting over the years.

• Luther DickinsonGuitar / VocalsThe lead voice and slide guitarist; also a member of The Word and a touring Black Crowe, and one of the great living hill country players
• Cody DickinsonDrums / Keys / WashboardThe engine, and the band's multi-instrumentalist, known for the electric washboard as much as the kit
• Chris ChewBassThe founding bassist and low-end anchor across the band's classic run
• Jim DickinsonFather / MentorThe legendary Memphis producer and musician who raised them in the music; not a member, but the reason the band exists

Influences

This is not a list of records they admired from a distance. These are the people who taught them, in person, in the hill country.

Interviews

Two conversations with Luther Dickinson on the music, the mentors, and the inheritance.

Going Deeper

The band is a doorway into an entire regional tradition. Walk through it.

• The source. Go straight to Mississippi Fred McDowell, then R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, to hear where all of this starts.
• The live show. The records are good; the band is a live act first. Find a full concert and let a one-chord groove run for ten minutes.
• Luther's other bands. The Word (sacred steel gospel) and his solo records show the same player in different rooms.
• The fife and drum picnics. Otha Turner's Gravel Springs picnic tradition is the deep root under all of it.

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