Memphis producer, musician Jim Dickinson dies - Entertainment AP - MiamiHerald.comMemphis producer, musician Jim Dickinson dies
FILE - In this Wednesday, June 11, 2008 file photo, Jim Dickinson stands outside his farm in Coldwater, Miss. Dickinson, a musician and producer who helped shape the Memphis sound in an influential career that spanned more than four decades, has died. He was 67.Similar stories:By CHRIS TALBOTT
Associated Press Writer
JACKSON, Miss. -- Jim Dickinson, a musician and producer who helped shape the Memphis sound in a career that spanned more than four decades, died Saturday. He was 67.
His wife, Mary Lindsay Dickinson, said he died in a Memphis, Tenn., hospital after three months of heart and intestinal bleeding problems.
The couple lived in Hernando, Miss., but Dickinson recently had bypass surgery and was undergoing rehabilitation at Methodist University Hospital, his wife said.
Jim Dickinson, perhaps best known as the father of Luther and Cody Dickinson, two-thirds of the Grammy-nominated North Mississippi Allstars, managed an outsider's career in an insider's industry. He recorded with and produced greats like Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Big Star, the Rolling Stones, The Replacements and Sam & Dave.
His work in the 1960s and '70s is still influential as young artists rediscover the classic sound of Memphis from that era - a melting pot of rock, pop, blues, country, and rhythm and blues.
"I think he was an incredibly influential individual," Big Star drummer Jody Stephens said Saturday. "I think he defined independent spirit in music, and I think that touched a lot of people."
Dickinson's music was informed by his eclectic and encyclopedic record collection - sold off and rebuilt a few times over the years, usually around Christmas - and his wide array of friends.
"As a producer, it really is all about taste," Jim Dickinson said in a 2008 interview with The Associated Press. "And I'm not the greatest piano player in the world, but I've got damn good taste. I'll sit down and go taste with anybody."
A dabbler in music while in college and later in shows at the famed Overton Park Shell in Memphis, Dickinson was on his way to becoming "a miserable history teacher." But his wife insisted he focus on his music after watching him play shows with the blues legends of Memphis.
"They were rediscovering Furry Lewis and Sleepy John Estes, Rev. Robert Wilkins, these talents that were like gods," Mary Lindsay Dickinson said in 2008. "They were street sweepers. They were yard men. They had no money, no fame, even though they'd invented this style, this musical style that was changing the world. When I saw what he could do with them - he thought he was gonna be a history teacher - I said, 'No, no, no, no, let's try music and see what happens."
Jim Dickinson moved around, traveling with both his own projects and as a sideman until his sons were born. He gave up the road and the lifestyle, built a home studio and settled in to the hard-scrabble life of the independent producer that he jokingly compared to hustling.
His sense of humor, gift for storytelling and open door kept musicians filing through his studio and kitchen as his sons grew up. He took an interest in the boys' music as another father might his sons' baseball career, even drawing Luther and Cody into his own bands. They last released an album together as Jungle Jim and the Voodoo Tiger in 2006.
"Growing up he would play piano and electric guitar and it just always fascinated me, and I always had a little toy guitar of some sort around," Luther Dickinson said in 2008. "And I've really been blessed because I always knew what I wanted to do and it was totally because of my dad and his friends."
Dickinson's career touched on some of the most important music made in the '60s and '70s. He recorded the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" in Muscle Shoals, Ala.; formed the Atlantic Records house band The Dixie Flyers to record with Franklin and other R&B legends in Miami; inspired a legion of indie rock bands through his work with Big Star; collaborated with Ry Cooder on a number of movie scores, including "Paris, Texas;" and played with Dylan on his Grammy-winning return to prominence, "Time Out of Mind."
He credited his work with Big Star on "Third/Sister Lovers" with keeping his tape reels turning over the years, and Stephens found Dickinson's fingerprints all over the album when he listened to it recently.
"There's so many contributions from people that Jim either brought in or helped steer," Stephens said. "And sometimes a brilliant decision is to do nothing, allow space and that sort of thing. His keyboard part in 'Kizza Me' is this great fractured piano that kind of cascades, like the piano's falling down a flight of steps. I think it was all about the spirit and the emotion."
Dickinson's later work as a producer veered wildly across genres, skipping from Mudhoney to T Model Ford to Lucero and Amy Lavere.
"I'm not really a success-oriented person," Dickinson said. "If you look back at my records that I've made as a producer, they're pretty left-wing. It's some pretty off-the-wall stuff. Especially in the punk rock days. I literally took clients because I thought it would impress my children. I did work in the '70s and '80s where that was definitely my main motive."
August 16, 2009
Memphis producer, musician Jim Dickinson dies - Entertainment AP - MiamiHerald.com
Jimmy Page My Les Paul Guitar is My Mistress and Wife | Parade.com
Jimmy Page My Les Paul Guitar is My Mistress and Wife | Parade.comJimmy Page: My Les Paul Guitar is My Mistress and WifeThree real-life guitar heroes rock the house in “It Might Get Loud.” Jack White (White Stripes), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), and The Edge (U2) get together for an impromptu jam session in Davis Guggenheim’s documentary tracing the rise of the electric guitar and three legendary musicians who made it their own.by Jeanne Wolf
Parade.com’s Jeanne Wolf found out some of Jimmy Page’s own rock memories and why he’ll miss the man who started it all, Les Paul, who passed away Thursday.
Jamming with The Edge and Jack White.
“What was so fascinating about it is that we are all really self-taught guitarists. We all have real interesting characteristics. It's not like we're part of an orchestra, where everyone has been taught the same way. But it turned out to be a great experience.”
Photos: Rock band reunionsRemembering Les Paul.
“He’s the man who started everything. He’s just a genius. He set the scene for what was to come as the pioneer of the electric guitar and new tape-recording technology. The Les Paul Gibson guitar that I got, I’ve played all the way through my career. It’s absolutely irreplaceable. I’ve had a marriage with that guitar. It’s my mistress and my wife -- and I don’t have to worry about paying any alimony. Of course, it has spawned some sons and daughters because I’ve acquired far too many guitars over the years. The blessed part is that I can’t play them all at once. If I just got back to my basic tools like the Les Paul, I suppose I could eliminate quite a few.”
Delivering newspapers got him started.
“I don't think my parents understood at all what I was doing, but they certainly didn't sabotage any of it. My dad bought me my first guitar, which was an acoustic. After that I wanted to pay for my own, so I got a paper route and got an electric one.”
Stars reveal what they would tell their younger selves
What he listened to as a kid.
“It was rock and roll and then the blues. It was just purely what was available to be heard in those days. I started listening to the radio and it was like this arm came out of the speaker and pulled me in. I was seduced. But for sure, I was influenced by all of those early rock and roll artists, the ones that came out of Memphis, Little Richard, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. These days I've been listening to a lot of rockabilly.”
Hearing his influence in current performers.
“That's how music travels on. I mean that's how I learned. But as far as the record business goes, it's in a total change at the moment. I think kids want to get their music for free, but they are keen to hear live music. So I don't know how that's going to work out at the end of the day.”
The secret to making a great song like “Stairway to Heaven.”
“How it came about was just tinkering around on the guitar. It came from that. That’s exactly how it happens. You might have just tuned up, and you start playing and one minute you have nothing, or just a couple of chords, and the next minute you’re actually coming up with some new vision.”
Paul, Ringo Unveil 'Beatles: Rock Band'
Still finding new fans after all these years.
“I guess I was old before I got young. Whenever I think about it, I think you just get measured up by what you do, what you produce, as far as your music goes. For me, it’s almost like being in the same picture with a different frame.”
As for those blasted critics.
“You can just be sarcastic or you can try and look at the positive side of it and say, ‘Well, they just didn’t have a clue,’ Each of our albums was so radically different than the one that preceded it, I guess the reviewers had no point of reference. The people who bought our records and got into them understood what we were doing.”
Celebs reveal their first jobs
Don’t look for Led Zeppelin on Guitar Hero any time soon.
“Obviously, there have been overtures made to us, but if you start with the first track on the first Led Zeppelin album, ‘Good Times Bad Times,’ and you think of the drum part that John Bonham did -- how many drummers in the world can actually play that? It’s like if they opened their Guitar Hero and started dabbling, there could be a lot of alcohol consumed and they still wouldn’t come close to Bonham.”
Film Review: The Manson Movie… unreleased | LA.CityZine.com - Los Angeles
Film Review: The Manson Movie… unreleased | LA.CityZine.com - Los Angeles
Last September in Los Angeles, the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival took place at the Sunset 5 Theater in Hollywood. The festival was sponsored by Independent Film Quarterly, Independent Movie Channel - both owned by festival founder Stuart Alson - and Moli.com. The festival boasts showcasing the next generation of voices in independent film and video, wrong! I went there was to watch the one good film in the festival; “The Manson Movie†was the opening night headliner in the documentary category. “The Manson Movie†is fascinating, just for the access he was granted with the notorious Manson Family.
Hendrickson is the only person alive that can boast being Manson the family filmmaker.During the two-year period around Manson’s trial Hendrickson lived, played, traveled, and got high with the Manson family while rolling 35mm film the whole time. The documentary takes us from Viet Nam, and all the footage was shot by Hendrickson himself; the L.A riots, trail and life with the Manson family, as he lived with them at the Spahn Movie Ranch. Hendrickson films infamous family members Paul Watkins, Lynette “Squeaky†Fromme, Steve “Clem†Grogan, and more in the late 60’s, and early 70’s. In “The Manson movie,†the kids are doing anything from acting, playing, and singing at the Spahn ranch, to protesting, hiding out, and monologing for the camera in this eighty-five minute long film.
It’s like a Manson family reality show, as the footage takes us through the start of the Los Angeles riots that took the life of activist Rubin Salazar and Squeaky Fromme outside the Los Angeles courthouse as the Manson trial took place. Hendrickson and Sharon Tate had the same spiritual advisor, and his working in Hollywood gave him an insider’s view. He spoke-freely of the investigation of Tate/LaBianca murders, Hollywood, Roman Polanski and the LAPD detectives covering the case.Hendrickson said The (Lacy) Peterson case is the classic example, the husbands always the first suspect. I talked to a woman, a friend of Sharon Tate’s that said it wasn’t his (Roman Polanski) baby, and that they had an open ended marriage.
In “The Manson Movie†we see the family skinny-dipping, singing, cooking, smoking weed, dumpster-diving, but the tone often drifts to the dark side; its fear, suspicion, and psychotic-devotion to their beloved Charlie. He narrates the film as, telling us about how the girls make dumpster casserole (laced with pot) one-minute, and jump to jaw-dropping footage of the family’s secret Devil’s Canyon retreat, and Death Valley ranch, interviews and protesting Charlie’s trial.One of the more fascinating things is that Hendrickson went to the L.A jailhouse to meet with Manson to talk about the filming of his movie. Another interesting incident where he was told “in a few days†he’d go to the courthouse and film, and that Manson himself was expecting to be filmed. The end result for us, the viewer is a lot of new Manson footage in the film. We hear from the Hendrickson, the cameraman, about how it felt being there, living through being the one pointing the camera at Charles Manson.
The footage alone is enough for the movie to be released. I asked him why he would make this film, and speak out now. Hendrickson said the difference is he is 63
and he doesn’t give a ****. You know, what I really had to, what I’ve really done is for my Grandchildren, because years ago somebody said, and I had the idea then to make a film, make it like you’d make a home movie for your grandchildren.â€Â
Hendrickson doesn’t leave out anything, or play to one-side or another in “The Manson Movie†he just uses this film-footage to document the times. The film is a fantastic documentary and a time capsule from the death of the sixties.
Jim Dickinson latimes.com keyword alex-chilton
POP EYE
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: What do the current albums by the Replacements and Green on Red have in common? Veteran Memphis producer Jim Dickinson, who did several cult-fave Alex Chilton records in the early '70s. Asked to compare the two bands, Dickinson said: "Green on Red are extremely intellectual and like nothing better than staying up all night discussing Sartre and Kant while smoking packs of cigarettes and drinking pots of coffee. The Replacements' idea of a good time is to get drunk and fall down!"
Rest Haven Restaurant, Clarksdale, Miss.
Rest Haven Restaurant, Clarksdale, Miss.
2:20 p.m. Feb. 23
Its never too early to start planning the road trip from Chicago to New Orleans for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. One mandatory stop is Chamoun's Rest Haven Restaurant in Clarksdale, Miss. I called yesterday to make sure they are still open. They are.
Here's an edited version of a story I wrote from a visit in early 2004. I was hungry. I had spent half a day talking to musician-producer Jim Dickinson at his North Mississippi compound. Then I went to this classic diner to eat Lebanese food. I think Mississippi is an underappreciated state.
CLARKSDALE, Miss. -- The parched terrain surrounding Chamoun's Rest Haven Restaurant is best-known for nourishing the blues. John Lee Hooker, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters all came from this part of the Delta, 75 miles south of Memphis. Blues are not usually linked to Lebanese cuisine. But the Rest Haven has been serving kibbies in the Delta since 1947........
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.....The traditional Lebanese dish consists of ground round steak, cracked wheat, onions, pepper, salt and olive oil. Kibbies are served fried, baked or raw. Homemade pita bread is served on the side.
The Rest Haven is at 419 State St. (Highway 61), just blocks from the Delta Blues Museum. When Muddy Waters was a young man, he sang on the corner of 4th and Sunflower, a mile and a half northwest of the Rest Haven. The restaurant is owned and operated by Chafik and Louise Chamoun (sha-moan). Chafik's cousin Woodrow and his wife, Amra, built the restaurant in 1947. Their parents were born in Lebanon.
The Rest Haven is as quaint as a Route 66 roadside attraction with its long evergreen awning and clean white brick that was cast in nearby Indianola, Miss. The same brick can be seen in a motel across the street and a nearby subdivision. The Rest Haven seats about 120 customers in a cafe and a separate dining room. "I'll tell you, 99 percent of the people who come here from the Netherlands, Germany or Boston know about our food better than the locals," Chafik Chamoun says while sitting in the diner on his Sunday off day. "Did you hear about the tabouli?" Well, no.
"Tabouli is our appetizer salad," he says. "You get parsley, cracked wheat, green onion. You can put a tomato in it and put some olive oil and lemon juice on it." Blues lovers from all walks of life have found the Rest Haven. "I don't know if you know the ZZ Top?" Chamoun asked. "They were here."
He walks over to a wall of fame and points to a picture of the bearded Texas trio eating kibbies and grape leaves. Chamoun continues, "I was busy making a living. I didn't know anything about the ZZ Top. It was 10 in the morning and these guys with long beards walked in. I asked my wife, 'Who are these people?' My wife said I better not say anything. She said, 'These people are famous. They are the ZZ Top.' They have been good to this town. They raised money for the blues museum. They've been here three or four times."
ZZ Top had a hit with "Tube Steak Boogie," but to my knowledge they've never written a song called "True Delta Kibbie." The meat is at the core of the kibbie. "It is not hamburger," declares Chamoun, a ringer for the late Anthony Quinn. "And it's not ground beef. You get the leanest meat you can get."
A local butcher trims off every piece of fat for the Rest Haven. He then grinds the meat not once, but twice. The cracked wheat is prepared by Ghossain's, a Lebanese bakery in Youngstown, Ohio. The bakery owners are from Zahlee, Lebanon, the hometown of the Chamouns. The wheat is boiled, dried, cracked and shipped to Mississippi.
"We get 40 packages of wheat every other week," Chamoun says. "Each package has six loaves. That's what we go through in a week's time here."
Chafik, 72, and Louise, 66, studied at the American School in Zahle, Lebanon, during the 1950s. She was an American citizen. Her father died when she was young and her mother reared the family on a farm in Lebanon. "I wanted to go to America more than anything," Chamoun says. "You were looking for a better life. You read about the United States. You think money grows on trees. There is more to it than that. You have to work."
Chafik works at the Rest Haven between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. six days a week. Around lunchtime Chafik will head home for a 20-minute nap. Louise doesn't come around the restaurant much anymore, but she does drop in occasionally to see how the kitchen is going and to make sure the premises are clean.
Every morning the kitchen makes homemade chocolate, strawberry and coconut pies, each one stacked with an Elvis pompadour of meringue.
The Rest Haven breakfast crowd is known for fetching the coffeepot to serve themselves and their neighbors. And check the words of wisdom from Louise's needlework behind the diner counter: "By the Time Your Children Are Fit To Live With, They Are Living With Someone Else."
Chafik and Louise were married on Nov. 29, 1953. They haven't been too busy to have children: Mona, 39, is an educator in Tyler, Texas. Paul, 41, is an engineer in Conway, Ark. Elizabeth, 45, is a nurse in Ashland, Ky. Vivian, 47, is an assistant principal in Cleveland, Miss. Robert, 50, is a Memphis attorney. And Paula, 43, works at the Rest Haven. She is also a dietitian. "The kibbie is real healthy," she says. "It has bulgur pure cracked wheat and there's no fat in the meat at all."
Chafik and Louise arrived in New York on May 5, 1954. The newlyweds came to America on a Greek passenger ship. They had about $200. They ate the nightly special of pickled fish and spaghetti. The trip took 21 days. "There were 1,800 people on the boat," Chamoun recalls. "The ticket was only $300 per person, so you didn't expect the Queen Mary." They did have the good fortune to run into some Lebanese people who brought along kibbies and cabbage roll. "We were in heaven!" Chamoun says.
Lebanese people have immigrated to northern Mississippi since the 1880s. They opened grocery stores, peddled goods and worked on farms. "There used to be many Lebanese here," Chamoun says. "Now, there's 20, 25 families." (Clarksdale's population is 20,000.) Chafik's first job was to help an uncle run a Clarksdale nightclub, circa 1955-56.
"People came from the farm on Saturday and would go to downtown nightclubs to hear the blues," he says. "On Saturday night it was like Broadway. People were walking everywhere." But a new world opened up when Chamoun's grandfather gave him $300 to buy a green 1951 Plymouth. Trouble was, Chamoun did not know how to drive a car. "A friend of my uncle's taught me," he says. "His name was Oxodine. We drove a 15-mile radius on Highway 49. We didn't park, he didn't show me how to pass, we didn't do anything. We came back and he said, 'You know how to drive'. I went to visit one of my kinfolks. I was so proud of my car, I didn't want to park in the street. I was scared somebody would hit it, so I parked in the driveway. When it came time to go, I didn't know how to back up the car.
"But the hardship is the best experience."
Using his newly acquired skills, Chamoun became a traveling salesman for Raleigh Products. Locals knew him as "The Raleigh Man." Chamoun drove up and down Highways 61 and 49. He would get nervous every time he drove past Parchman, the Mississippi State Penitentiary on 46 acres along Highway 49. Blues guitarist Son House did time here (1928-30) and Elvis Presley's dad, Vernon, spent eight months at Parchman in 1938 for forging a check.
Most of Chamoun's clients were farmers. He sold on credit, but farm people always paid back on time. "It was like Avon," he says. "I would go house to house. I sold hog medicine. Perfume. Pie fillings. Sometimes the farm people would buy stuff from me just to help me, too." Chamoun kept his goods in the trunk. He stopped at a house, opened the trunk and customers would gather around the car. They pointed at what they wanted to purchase. He would point at the price. Chamoun takes a drag off a thin brown filter cigarette and says, "I could speak a little English. But I couldn't understand everyday English."
In 1968 Chamoun found a burst of energy from his kibbies. He opened a small grocery store on Friar's Point Road, outside of town. He built on a 25-seat diner, which is where ZZ Top discovered kibbies. "I was making pita bread," Chamoun says. "Then we made a kibbie sandwich. That brought people in. After that, I sold cabbage rolls and grape leaves. The next thing you know, I'm selling lunch."
Chamoun also sold Cadillacs and Oldsmobiles in a Highway 61 dealership. And during his remaining free time Chamoun was still "The Raleigh Man." In 1990 Chamoun and his wife took over the Rest Haven, which was operated by a cousin. Of course, it would be a cliche to say the rest is history. Every meal at the Rest Haven is a new celebration of America's cultural crossroads.
Chamoun's Rest Haven Restaurant is open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily except Sunday. Reservations are not required (662-624-8601).