Keeping the Zebra Ranch Going.

I was searching out blog remembrances of Jim Dickinson, when I came across this. It's from Mary Lindsay Dickinson via Robert Gordon via Paul Duane via Joe Nick Patoski:

"People have been asking me what they could do to help us. I didn't know what to say until yesterday when I woke up with Jim's voice in my head, saying as he often did, "I am never insulted by money." This fits into Cody and Luther's plan for the Zebra Ranch Studio, which is to continue to record there with the benefit of Jim's sonic genius and musical ambiance.

If people want to participate in keeping Jim Dickinson's dream alive, they can donate to friendsofjimdickinson@gmail.com through paypal or mail to
Mary Dickinson
P.O. Box 1015
Coldwater, MS 38618

Please help us spread the word that the Zebra Ranch studio is always open
for business, either as a rental or with the addition of Cody as producer,
Luther as guitarist and aesthetic consultant,and Jim smiling down on us from Heaven."

If you know anywhere this information should be posted, post it. World Boogie is Coming.



Damn right it's coming. And, I'll have that other post up soon--Jim generated some amazing memorials, befitting the work that he did.

I'm just dead, I'm not gone: James Luther Dickinson 11/15/41 to 08/15/09

(L-R: Lee Baker, Jim Dickinson, Sid Selvidge, Jimmy Crosthwait, photo by William Eggleston)


The first time I heard the album Dixie Fried and really heard it was late at night in the Record Exchange in the Boardwalk at the top of Dickson street. Subsequently, every time I listen to something from the body of work that flows back to Jim Dickinson, it's with the awareness that I'm in danger of having my mind blown. That album was a hard record to find then, and for years it was just a tape of that and a copy of the even-more obscure Beale Street Saturday Night audio collage that represented, for me, a great pronouncement of how to do and feel and be with music, how to stare down history and have a damn good time doing it. Except that "staring down history" doesn't really get at the incredible warmth in his music, and saying that it represented (made real) in musical praxis the real possibilities of southern collectivism after the 1960s sounds too heavy, but that's what it did. For years, when he wasn't making records, we still knew he was down there, in North Mississippi, just south of Memphis. Thinking he might hear it was a good reason to keep making music.

Dixie Fried was re-released on CD a few years ago, and it's been kind of odd to see copies of this former talisman on sale for $8.99 on Ebay. Odd, but not bad at all since it also came with a veritable flood of new material, 4 new music records, a spoken word album, albums with and by his sons, Cody and Luther, all since 2002. I was really getting used to living in a world where James Luther Dickinson not only was around, but was making records, making lots of records, and playing music. I'll miss that. Condolences to the Dickinson Family and friends, and thanks to Jim for the music.

L-R: Jim, Luther, Cody, and Mary Dickinson
photo by Annie liebowitz

RIP Mike Seeger.

Mike Seeger has passed. I'm not the one to tell you about him though. There are a couple of good remembrances here and here.

The Band is...

Discuss.