North Mississippi All-Stars
Live in the Hills
3.5 Stars
“Times done been won’t be no more.” It’s a haunting and all too true refrain from “Horseshoe,” by the NorthvMississippi Allstars. With Othar Turner, R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough dead and gone, few of the original apostles of the north Mississippi blues style remain.
Luckily, the half-revivalists, half-archivists that are the Allstars work full-time to keep the “hill country” sound alive, and that’s just what they’re doing again on this “official bootleg” from last year’s annual Hill Country Picnic in Potts Camp, MS.
In the first half of their short 40 minute set the Allstars let their heavy blues riffs run wild, playing mostly original numbers from 2008’s Hernando. With Luther Dickinson’s distorted guitar breaking through a wall of sound from brother Cody’s bass drum, this is dirty, angry blues in
the spirit of Burnside. In “Keep the Devil Down,” for instance, Luther puts the sound into words, singing “Them things got me snapping like a fighting dog, drinking gun powder from a rotten log.” You just don’t pick a fight with this kind of blues.
From there the set is taken over by the kind of bright, resonant songs that characterized the Allstar’s 2005 album “Electric Blue Watermelon.” With spurts of joyous blues chords backed up by the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, Othar Turner’s old outfit, these songs often have the timbre of sunlight coming through a warm southern rain.
And then, as if to end on a hardass note, the Allstars close their set with “Goin’ Down South,” a Burnside original that doubles as some nice sexual slang.
Though it’s probably not the best introduction to the All-Stars or their Mississippi hill country style, this album is a nice live set for those already in the know. Spin it a few times and you’ll be sure to feel like you’re down south junkin’.
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