While rolling through the vast American night on a ramshackle tour bus, legendary blues harmonica boss
Charlie Musselwhite and
North Mississippi Allstars' guitarist
Luther Dickinson were engaged in a deep conversation. At one point, the sage elder bluesman nodded at his companion, looked out the window, and pointed at the rising moon. "New Moon Freedom Rockers" was all he said. Back in Mississippi, Cody & Luther Dickinson joined
Musselwhite and their dad -- roots legend
Jim Dickinson, who added "Jelly Roll" to their name -- at the Zebra Ranch recording studio, with old friends Alvin Hart,
Jimbo Mathus,
NMA bassist
Chris Chew, and washtub bassist Paul Taylor. They pulled their chairs into a circle, arranged microphones, and hit "record." The completed tapes were archived after the elder
Dickinson's passing. Years later, Stony Plain's Holger Peterson, who had heard about these apocryphal tapes, contacted
Dickinson's sons about releasing them. The first volume appeared in the early fall of 2020. The 11-track set list contains two originals each from
Musselwhite and
Mathus, and another from
Hart. The remainder are covers.
Musselwhite introduces his "Blues for Yesterday" with a woolly harmonica above a dirty guitar and shuffling snare. His lyrics, delivered in a souled-out Kosciusko, Mississippi drawl, underscore the conversation he and
Luther enjoyed on that clattering tour bus. The crew offer a raw read of
Doug Sahm's immortal boogie "She's About a Mover" with
Hart's spirited vocal coming right from the swamp.
Mathus' "Searchlight" was written and arranged in the vintage Chicago style of
Muddy Waters at Chess and offers glorious piano pumping from the elder
Dickinson with biting slide guitar work.
Jim Dickinson delivers the lion's share of the vocals here. His deep, testifying flow on
Charles Mingus' "Oh Lord Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb on Me," reflects the tune's original inspiration: The house rent parties of the early to mid-20th century. His backing vocalists are ragged but right, and his piano dovetails with
Luther's slide. Further, his choogling piano on
Junior Wells' classic "Messing with the Kid" accents the vocal while
Musselwhite's harp fills build to a burning solo.
Hart's "Millionaire Blues (If Blues Was Money)" is a loose, nasty roadhouse blues that could have been on the tune box in
Junior Kimbrough's juke joint.
Mathus' hilarious and salacious "Greens and Ham" is a Hill Country blues with resonant, canny, martial snares, a swampy National Steel, and his lusty vocal underscoring all the double entendres. The set closes with a sad, lowdown read of
the Mississippi Sheiks' "Blues Is a Mighty Bad Feeling."
Jim Dickinson's mournful, yet menacing vocal is framed by a desolate harmonica, electric and acoustic guitars, and uncharacteristically bright honky tonk piano. If you dug the first entry from the
New Moon Jelly Roll Freedom Rockers, you have no excuse not to pick up the second. If you haven't, the time for discovery is nigh. ~ Thom Jurek