Customer Reviews

Dixie Fried

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Add James Luther Dickinson to the pile of producer/artists whose influence is vast but whose recognition, except with cognoscenti, is minimal. He is in august company, and runs a North Mississippi/Memphis recording studio on par with Cowboy Jack Clements's outside Nashville.

With the revival of attention in southern roots music prompted by the best selling "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack and live recording, it is surprising Dickinson's own contribution, now available on CD, is overlooked. For with this album Dickinson gives a voice more authentic than a mere preservationist. This is far beyond the earliest Dickinson sounds from the Sun-influenced "The Goat Dancers" period. Indeed, the guitar solo on "Wine" is a fabulous execution worthy of Junior Brown, while the jackhammer piano is full-on honky-tonk, and if it were not for Dickinson's bulk you'd think the Killer himself had kicked over the piano stool to rip it out. The drums can barely keep up, and the wet voices of backup singers already sneak in notes they will scream horizontally in the after show entertainment. And this is only the first cut on the album, not the best cut on the album.

There are, perhaps, certain points of comparison with early recordings of "Little Feat," to which this reviewer can only respond: they stole it all from Dickinson.

Originally released in 1972 this wonderful album's re release in 2002 has again appeared to have "slipped by the radar". A fantastic example of southern rock by this great american musician, mentor and producer who has worked with the greats including Dylan, Cooder, Rolling Stones to name a few.

From the opening rocker-Wine, the ballads-The Strength of Love, the country romps Louise, Dixie Fried and Wild Bill Jones, the Blues-Casey Jones and O How She Dances this recording is a classic. The version of Dylan's John Brown has been used by Dylan in pre show soundtrack for his concerts. It is the definitive version of the song

The man Dylan called "My Brother" when accepting his grammy for Time Out of Mind, after playing on same and assisting Dylan & Lanois with the production created this Classic Album 36 years ago and I have only recently discovered it, what a shame it took me so long.

"There were only a few other albums in the 1970s roots movement that even attempted to go this deep - the Flying Burrito Brother's Gilded Palace of Sin and Gene Clark's forgotten No Other come to mind - but none of them were such true products of the real roots they purported to spring from.
And the intensity goes up on the next track, a talking blues version of Dylan's scathing anti-war, anti-jingoist "John Brown." Over a funky Memphis groove that might have served as a template for Dylan's later Muscle Shoals Jesus phase, Dickinson, intoning like some sort of Delta Jim Morrison, recites the almost unbearable story of a mother's sick pride in her war-ruined son, while soprano sax and ghostly pedal steel keen out desolate obbligatos.

-Dusted-

How to describe JLD's first studio effort? Quite simply a masterpiece of every influence that ever excisted in the musical genre of rock. If you've gotten hold of his last effort "Free Beer Tomorrow: then this is your next stop. Endlessly eternal and forever deep. Get hold of this reissue before it disapears for another 20 years!

I was very sorry to hear of the recent passing of Jim Dickinson. I first became aware of Jim through his association with Ry Cooder as keyboard player and producer. He was one of those "back of the album" guys whose name appeared on a ridiculous number of classic albums. I purchased Dixie Fried years ago based on a recommendation; it still sounds like nothing else I've heard. We're talking Americana on Overdrive. Jim had a reputation in music circles as a legendary character. Although I never had the pleasure of meeting him, after hearing this album I knew the stories were all true. Recommended.

Better known or unknown as a producer rather than a musician, Jim Dickinson's lost lone solo album stands up against many of his contemporaries like Dr. John who plays on the album. Dickinson's voice is also similar, though more "out there" in its craziness.

The selection of songs is great though starting of with the ripping rockibilly sounding WINE, only to come down with a gospel Elvis sounding song, STRENGTH OF LOVE, nice mellow droney organ. LOUISE is a more midtempo countrified twang sounding awfully upbeat for a song about death. JOHN BROWN, a Dylan cover about the horrors of war, is accented by some interestingly psychedelic synths a phased vocals, but ends up as morality story as you'd expect from Dylan. DIXIE FRIED thankfully gets back to the party, Dickinson makes this Carl Perkin's cover his own pretty well, altering the phrasing and making it more of a country rock boogie. THE JUDGEMENT is the slowest song mellow spaced out interpretation of Revelations, which doesn't drag on like one would think. O HOW SHE DANCES probably one of more original sounding tunes, all acoustic voodoo bayou sounding. WILD BILL JONES is alright country style thing pretty weak after hearing the previous tracks. CASEY JONES/ON THE ROAD AGAIN finds a nice acoustic blues groove and closes the album satisfyingly.

Though not as wild as I was hoping for, DIXIE FRIED is a orginal sounding take on country rock delivered by a guy who's been around and had a hand in some of the albums that changed rock and roll.

Some folks believe this to be a classic. I have owned the LP for some years and I do not think so. I admire Jim Dickinson; he has produced some great stuff (his two sons Luther and Cody, of the great Memphis group The North Mississippi All-Stars, not the least), but "Dixie Fried" is a hard record to listen to. The title track is certainly great and illustrates the essential obliquity of the Memphis approach to music-making. Echoes of the jug bands abound, and there is a good bit of weirdness for weirdness' sake. Also, Jim Dickinson, as a singer, is a great piano player. But this record points up just how willful and wrongheaded the whole Memphis approach can be. I have always thought that maybe some of the mystique of the Bluff City is, well, bluff. I used to see Dickinson's band, Mud Boy and the Neutrons, and I was disappointed every time. Maybe I just hadn't drank enough but the spectacle of grown, talented men rampaging through Chuck Berry classics and singing them out of tune, even with the added visual excitement of a washboard player, didn't exactly make me quiver with appreciation of how buck-wild and outrageous the whole thing was. Kind of boring, actually, like some guy reading a Gregory Corso poem over a twelve-bar blues.