Show Review

Doubleheaders and good ole Blues Rock have seemed to go the way of cassette tapes and fondue, hard to find, outdated, and sorely missed. On an unseasonably warm night, psychedelic blues rockers The North Mississippi All-Stars brought their brand of homegrown Hill Country Blues to Baltimore and took baseball legend Ernie Banks’ advice of “Let’s play two,” and played a doubleheader of their own. They started off with an in-store acoustic set at the Record and Tape Traders in Towson, before hopping back in a cab and making the short trip down I-83 into downtown Baltimore to play to a packed house at the recently re-christened 8x10 club.

As with most in-store sets the band was wedged into a corner in the back of the store. In this case they were hidden behind a row of country CDs, seated on stools next to a rack of adult DVDs, using a record bin as a guitar stand. Perhaps it was because they were late arriving after having to fight rush hour traffic coming up I-695, or perhaps it was the cramped quarters the band had to contend with, but it took a couple of songs for them to settle in and get comfortable. The opening “Ragged But Right” felt rushed and the following “Moonshine” was a bit sloppy. But by the third song, “Teasin’ Brown,” they had relaxed and were comfortable. As the band relaxed so did those gathered in between the rows of used CDs, easily chatting with the band in between tunes. They played an eight-song acoustic set, with drummer Cody Dickinson trading in his drum kit for an acoustic guitar. The set was loaded with songs off of their new album Electric Blue Watermelon, and was highlighted by “Mean Ole Wind Died Down” and the set closing instrumental “Goin’ Home.”

Opening their set at the 8x10 with Cody’s brother, guitarist Luther Dickinson on cigar box guitar, they tore through Blues legend Charley Patton’s “Mississippi Boll Weevil” and immediately proclaimed their spot in the long lineage of Mississippi Blues rockers and blues-men. Each and every time the North Mississippi All-Stars take the stage they keep alive the legacy of Mississippi neighbors, mentors, friends and blues greats R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Otha Turner. They played a set peppered with the songs learned at the feet of those legends, “Po Black Maddie,” “Shake’em Down,” and the set ending “Po’ Boy” > “Snake Drive,” which dripped with authenticity and pure blues soul.

They also staked their place in that lineage with their own batch of Hill Country Blues infused tunes that permeated a down and dirty stomp that turned the 8x10 into a packed, smoky juke joint that could have been found on some nameless back-wood road in rural Mississippi. This was not just some faithful reconstruction of the Hill Country style, the North Mississippi All-Stars advance the genre along. allowing it to grow and evolve even further. They play with a maniacal punk energy that exposes their age and some of their other influences, as they tear through frantic riff after frantic riff. But just as easily as they can slip back into some deep funk laden groove that finds bassist Chris Chew dancing around the stage, or they break into a soul searing, heart breaking blues line that just begs the crowd to stand up and testify.

Midway through one of these soul searing, heart breaking blues lines sandwiched in between the new “Moonshine” and blues standard “Georgia Women,” Chew, whose gigantic presence and stature seem to fill the entire stage, began to extol the crowd with a revivalist rap about having a good time, finding a place to get his drink on, and maybe finding a bit of post-show love. He even threatened to, “shake my big ass and turn the 8x10 into the 12x12.”

They played one long set that was broken up by the familiar drum/percussion jam that seems so common at times, only the North Mississippi All-Stars added their own take and did not forget their rural roots in doing so. Drummer Cody strapped on the most down-home of down-home instruments, the washboard. Only this was not the washboard your parents knew. It was fed through a rack of effect pedals that twisted the clack-clack of the washboard into what felt like some deranged acid-fueled journey. Chew locked into a deep groove along with Cody, as brother Luther joined in on drums, providing a simple pocket of safety to balance the insanity coming from Cody’s washboard.

As with many of their mentors, The North Mississippi All-Stars are at times a bit lacking lyrically, becoming overly simplistic or repetitive. But as with many of their mentors and the other legends of the Hill Country Blues they are not about deep introspective Dylanesque couplings, they are about the feel and soul they evoke. They let their music speak instead, with their lyrics becoming just an excuse to fill space until Luther steps up to add another emotive solo to the proceedings.

A lengthy “All Night Long,” broken into two by the addition of “Turn on your Lovelight,” and capped by another frantic Luther solo ended the night and furthered cemented the North Mississippi All-Stars place among their Hill Country idols and help develop their own legacy. A legacy that some hot-shot guitar player kid from the hills of Mississippi, who has sweated through hours of practice and suffered through innumerable blistered fingers, may some day learn…perhaps at the feet of his idols.