{"id":111864,"date":"2021-06-17T07:32:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T12:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=111864"},"modified":"2021-06-23T15:25:30","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T20:25:30","slug":"north-mississippi-hill-country-picnic-artist-qa-luther-dickinson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/north-mississippi-hill-country-picnic-artist-qa-luther-dickinson\/","title":{"rendered":"North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic Artist Q&#038;A: Luther Dickinson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The<strong> <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nmshillcountrypicnic.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">2021 North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic<\/a><\/strong> is just around the corner. Mark your calendars for June 25\u201326, and get your camping gear ready for a hot weekend of music, family, and Mississippi-flavored shenanigans just a short drive north of Oxford in <strong>Waterford, Mississippi<\/strong> at the <strong>Betty Davis Ponderosa<\/strong>. Tickets are $25 per day, with a $15 camping fee and a $10 cooler fee, available at the gate the day of the Picnic (CASH ONLY; online sales ended June 15).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/north-mississippi-hill-country-picnic-brings-the-heat-june-25-26-2021\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read more about the Picnic here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I gave <strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nmallstars.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">North Mississippi Allstars<\/a><\/strong>&#8216; guitar hero <strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lutherdickinson.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Luther Dickinson<\/a><\/strong> a ring recently as he was driving to Atlanta. We chatted about the Picnic and what he&#8217;s been up to lately, and reminisced the Allstars&#8217; early days.<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LHt29ZnW5lA\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019m about to get on the road myself. I\u2019m headed down to Vicksburg for a couple of days.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I love Vicksburg! It was the first place that championed us and encouraged us to play. All the other audiences we were playing were just, you know, hard audiences. They supported us enough, but when we would come down to Vicksburg in the early days it would be so exciting; it really elevated us.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yeah! The first time I saw y\u2019all play was at The Biscuit Company and it must have been like \u201997 or \u201996.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Whaat?! That\u2019s exactly what I\u2019m talking about, that is awesome.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is it about the Picnic that makes it stand out from other festivals? Because it really is special.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well, it\u2019s like a family reunion. It\u2019s the only time, for me, when I get to see the whole Hill Country community, you know? Because we\u2019ve been on tour forever. But I always make it a point to come and be a part of the Picnic and recharge my batteries with that Hill Country funk. The music is really unique. Hill Country music has its own thing, and it\u2019s widely influential. If you want the real deal [go to the Picnic] to see the musical family still carrying on, it\u2019s such a beautiful community.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It\u2019s got its own vibe, that\u2019s for sure. I see you\u2019re playing with Cedric and Sharde [this year]. What\u2019s that set going to be like?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ooh, that\u2019s going to be fun! We\u2019ll do some of the tunes that we all know together, and we\u2019ll do some we don\u2019t know together. We\u2019ll take turns backing each other up. We\u2019ll have double drums set up, and Sharde will play some fife as well. It\u2019s gonna be fun.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_111890\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-111890\" style=\"width: 2022px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Luther-tall-1-scaled.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-111890 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Luther-tall-1-scaled.jpg?resize=640%2C810\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"810\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Luther-tall-1-scaled.jpg?w=2022&amp;ssl=1 2022w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Luther-tall-1-scaled.jpg?resize=237%2C300&amp;ssl=1 237w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Luther-tall-1-scaled.jpg?resize=809%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 809w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Luther-tall-1-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C972&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Luther-tall-1-scaled.jpg?resize=1213%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1213w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Luther-tall-1-scaled.jpg?resize=1618%2C2048&amp;ssl=1 1618w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Luther-tall-1-scaled.jpg?w=1280 1280w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Luther-tall-1-scaled.jpg?w=1920 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-111890\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luther Dickinson at the 2019 North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic. Photo by Jean Frank Photography.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Do you have any favorite Picnic memories that you can share?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Hmm \u2026 well there was one rainy year that some of the audience was just sliding and wallowing in the mud, you know, like real Missi-freakin\u2019-hippies\u2014Missihippies! And that was really wild. There was a great after party [one] year\u2014Alvin Youngblood Hart played at Foxfire Ranch. I have to say my favorite memory is doing the guitar clinics. There were some years when we did the guitar clinics, and it\u2019s really\u2014it\u2019s not easy\u2014but it\u2019s really fun. I learned a lot doing it. It\u2019s amazing to have this huge group of musicians who know the Hill Country repertoire from all over the world; they come to Mississippi, and they can already play the North Mississippi music. It really makes me happy. Cause that\u2019s what ties the Hill Country community together is the repertoire\u2014the shared repertoire. Each musical family has its own style and each family member has their own style branched out within the families. But there are certain songs that everybody does from time to time, you know. That\u2019s what ties the community together.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Speaking of which, I guess The Black Keys are getting a lot of attention for this new album they just put out.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That is fantastic. And that\u2019s a great segue, cause that\u2019s all about the repertoire. The songs have a life of their own. Songs are like kids\u2014they run off and have lives of their own. And for those cats to expose their audience to the Hill Country repertoire is really exciting. Because those songs, they deserve to be in the American songbook. And not only that, they\u2019re employing <a href=\"https:\/\/ericdeatonmusic.com\/epk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Eric Deaton<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kennybrownmusic.com\/about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kenny Brown<\/a> and exposing the world to them once again. That\u2019s fantastic man. It\u2019s funny. Kenny hired me to go on the road with RL Burnside in 1997. And at that point, he was the young guy among the elders, and Cedric and I were like the really young dudes. You know, Kenny Brown grew up being the young guy. He was hanging out with my Dad and the Memphis Blues community in the \u201860s, as a teenager. And now, Kenny is the old guy! Passing it along to Dan [Auerbach] and Patrick [Carney].<\/p>\n<p>The thing about Hill Country music is that in its rawest form, undiluted, rawest form, it might be too nasty for public consumption, you know what I mean? But John Spencer turned Auerbach on. Dan said that recently in an interview. And I didn\u2019t know that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yvQXfSFkcjU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>A Ass Pocket of Whiskey <\/em><\/a>is what turned the Black Keys on to RL Burnside. That\u2019s when I was on the road with RL, the <em>Ass Pocket of Whiskey<\/em> tour, and he was on the top of his game, touring the world. But when the music is filtered through generations and regions, and reinterpreted and reimagined, then that\u2019s when it becomes of a wider appeal. I just think that raw, unadulterated Mississippi music is just too nasty. You gotta work together, ya know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>I know what you mean. That reminds me of a funny story. When I left Mississippi in \u201998, I ended up in Washington State for a couple years. And I was so homesick, super homesick. This must have been around 2001. I happened to turn on the radio and hear the DJ talking to you, Cody, and Chris Chew. Y\u2019all were getting ready to play a show as The Word. I [was just] driving around outside Seattle, and was like \u201cHoly shit!\u201d I went to the show and had so much fun. But I could tell, you know, the people there, they were digging the music but nobody was dancing the way I was dancing. I got a lot of comments from folks, like, \u201cHow\u2019d you learn to dance like that?!\u201d I just said, \u201cI\u2019m from Mississippi! It\u2019s in my blood!\u201d And I have to say that y\u2019all\u2019s music got me through some homesick years.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m so glad. And that\u2019s what music all about, man. Memories. It\u2019s true\u2014it you think about early rock n roll, you think about British blues rock. Mississippi music, it\u2019s like the root. And you know, not many people are going to get down and chew on the root. But then you get to the leaves and the flowers and then everybody can enjoy the fruits of the labor.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you have upcoming? Any new projects or tours or shows coming up?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Yeah, the Allstars are back to work. We\u2019ve been touring a lot already. And it feels so, so good to get back to work. We have a new Allstars record that will be coming out early next year, and we are super excited about that. And I\u2019m always working with Sharde. You know, besides Cody, she\u2019s my greatest collaborator. We just recorded a really cool record with G Love. G Love came to Mississippi to make a collaborative Mississippi record. We had so many guests roll through, and everyone just did fantastic. G Love was just ecstatic. We\u2019re finishing that record, so that will be coming out next year, as well. He came to the Zebra Ranch and Sharde came, and RL Boyce came, and Cam Kimbrough came, and Kingfish came, it was fantastic.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I bet that was a fun party.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was so good. And G Love has some great songs so everyone contributed. It\u2019s really exciting, it\u2019s an exciting collaboration.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Where can fans find you online, what\u2019s your strongest platform these days?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not online. I\u2019m a recovering Instagram addict. I post stuff to share music with my friends, but I\u2019m not actively online.<\/p>\n<p><strong>All right last question I have is \u2013 what are you currently jamming these days?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last year, it was Prince, Tame Impala, and James Brown. This year it\u2019s James Brown, and oh and a lot of film scores. A lot of Hans Zimmer and Wolfgang film scores. I\u2019m working on a film score, so I\u2019ve been really enjoying studying film scores and studying a whole new side of music. But there\u2019s always that James Brown, that\u2019s the one. <a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"25\" height=\"16\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-14544\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/TheLocalVoiceLigature-25web.jpg?resize=25%2C16\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/TLV-373-NMHCP-Half-page.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-111704\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/TLV-373-NMHCP-Half-page.jpg?resize=408%2C245\" alt=\"\" width=\"408\" height=\"245\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/TLV-373-NMHCP-Half-page.jpg?resize=300%2C180&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/TLV-373-NMHCP-Half-page.jpg?w=750&amp;ssl=1 750w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 408px) 100vw, 408px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P0JsmXJoNcc\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RmmNE-l_by4\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2021 North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic is just around the corner. Mark your calendars for June 25\u201326,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[321,17316],"tags":[2022,1452,6690,1252,397,18792,312],"class_list":["post-111864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-localfestivals","category-mississippi","tag-hill-country-blues","tag-hill-country-picnic","tag-luther-dickinson","tag-north-mississippi-allstars","tag-north-mississippi-hill-country-picnic","tag-the-biscuit-company","tag-vicksburg"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/2021-06-16-Luther-Dickinson.jpg?fit=1200%2C705&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}