Luther and Cody Dickinson, the offspring of producer Jim Dickinson, joined forces with bassist Chris Chew at the dawn of the 2000s to launch Shake Hands with Shorty under the North Mississippi Allstars name. The recording offered a high-voltage reinterpretation of their Hill Country heritage that wove together Delta blues, bluegrass, hip-hop, funk, ragtime, and rockabilly, earning a Grammy nomination. The group has sustained an expansive range of sonic palettes and partnerships while remaining rooted in an unapologetically gritty regional foundation. Electric Blue Watermelon from 2005, the chart-topping Hernando from 2008, and World Boogie Is Coming from 2013 each drew worldwide acclaim for their unfiltered force. Prayer for Peace, the 2017 release issued after Chew’s 2015 departure, carried earthy acoustic blues onto the global folk stage. The swamp-soaked Set Sail arrived in 2022 with new recruits bassist Jesse Williams and vocalist Lamar Williams, Jr., plus a cameo from legendary soul singer William Bell.
Born in Fayette County, Tennessee, to the storied Memphis producer Jim Dickinson, the Dickinson brothers later relocated with their family to northern Mississippi, where they absorbed the country-blues idiom of Mississippi Fred McDowell and R.L. Burnside. That regional current formed the core of the Allstars’ identity, yet the band also folded in a rock bite, an alternative sensibility reminiscent of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and the Black Keys, the raw edge of their own early punk outfit D.D.T., and the touring stamina of jam bands such as Phish. After sharpening their ensemble skills on the road supporting assorted acts, the North Mississippi Allstars delivered their debut, Shake Hands with Shorty, in spring 2000. The album achieved notable success and secured a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album, as did their follow-up, 51 Phantom, in 2001. Later that year the trio collaborated with John Medeski and pedal steel player Robert Randolph to form the instrumental gospel-blues collective the Word, which issued an album and toured.
Reconvening with guitarist Duwayne Burnside, son of R.L., the group unveiled Polaris in 2003, then the concert document Hill Country Revue: Live at Bonnaroo in late 2004. Electric Blue Watermelon, featuring appearances by Lucinda Williams, Robert Randolph, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Otha Turner, and additional guests, surfaced on ATO Records in 2005 and brought the band its third straight Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album. That same year the Allstars backed John Hiatt on his album Master of Disaster. Extracurricular ventures multiplied: Luther Dickinson joined the Black Crowes as lead guitarist in 2007 while continuing with the Allstars, and during his absence Cody Dickinson and Chris Chew formed the side project Hill Country Revue. The original trio returned in 2008 with Hernando, the inaugural release on their own Songs of the South imprint. The following year they issued Do It Like We Used to Do, a two-disc live collection accompanied by a third disc containing a documentary film about the band.
Producer Jim Dickinson died in late 2009. In March 2010 the brothers and Chris Chew assembled at the family-owned Zebra Studios to craft a tribute album, enlisting family friends Ry Cooder, Mavis Staples, Spooner Oldham, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and Jack Ashford. The resulting Keys to the Kingdom, released on Songs of the South in early 2011, comprised original material alongside one cover—a single-chord blues reading of Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile (With the Memphis Blues Again).” During summer 2012 the posthumous Jim Dickinson album I’m Just Dead, I’m Not Gone appeared; recorded live in Memphis in 2006, it featured the North Mississippi Allstars as his backing band. World Boogie Is Coming, widely regarded as the group’s pinnacle, emerged at the close of summer 2013. After touring, the Dickinson brothers paused the band to pursue solo endeavors; Chew exited in 2015.
Upon regrouping, the Allstars cut five tracks at Memphis’s Royal Studios with Boo Mitchell serving as co-producer and tracked six additional songs across southern facilities. They assembled longtime associates Oteil Burbridge, Grahame Lesh of Midnight North, Sharisse Norman, Dominic Davis, Sharde Thomas, Kenny Brown, and Danielle Nicole. Prayer for Peace, announced in March 2017, was preceded by the title track and a version of R.L. Burnside’s “Long Haired Doney.” The album also contained Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “You Got to Move” and the standard “Deep Ellum.” The band toured with Alvin Youngblood Hart beginning in May, and the record arrived in early June.
Texas photographer Wyatt McSpadden had journeyed to North Mississippi in 1996 to document local players, meeting Jim Dickinson who introduced him to the sons. The Dickinson brothers eagerly escorted McSpadden through their community and connected him with the musical families of Otha Turner, R.L. Burnside, and Junior Kimbrough. Years of touring and recording caused the connection to lapse until McSpadden resurfaced in 2017 with the two-decade-old images. The photographs stirred memories and underscored how the region’s sound persisted and evolved. Motivated by those pictures, the North Mississippi Allstars returned to Zebra Ranch Studio and fashioned the album they envisioned within them, again calling on Sharde Thomas and Cedric Burnside while adding Mavis Staples, Jason Isbell, and Duane Betts. The outcome, Up and Rolling, appeared in fall 2019, presenting the band’s contemporary Mississippi music rooted in ancestral traditions yet oriented toward the future.
Responding to global upheaval of the preceding half-decade, the group adopted a sweeter, more soulful, and restrained approach on the 2022 album Set Sail. The ten-song collection introduced bassist Jesse Williams and vocalist Lamar Williams, Jr., while legendary soul singer William Bell joined gospel vocalist Sharisse Norman for the duet single “See the Moon.”
