Photo by Field Recordings
Jim Dickinson
Two years have passed since the death of Memphis musician and producer Jim Dickinson at age 67, but the world has not forgotten him.
During his life, Dickinson was hailed for his lengthy resum�: as a session player for the likes of Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones, a producer for influential groups including Big Star and The Replacements, a sometime solo artist, leader of the deconstructionist roots-rock band Mud Boy & The Neutrons, and the patriarch of a small musical dynasty through his sons, Cody and Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars.
But Dickinson was more than the sum of his CV; he was quite literally the thread that connected Sun Records with the New Rose label, Furry Lewis with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Flaming Groovies with Primal Scream.
Photos courtesy Mary Lindsay Dickinson
Portrait of the artist as a young man: Jim Dickinson in 1956.
Wrestling and music icons collide as Jerry Lawler and Jim Dickinson pose for this undated photo.
He was the avatar of a boundless and boundary-less musical vision he dubbed "world boogie," and many of his finest contributions to the rock and roll canon will endure forever. It's a knowledge Dickinson reflected in the epitaph he chose for himself: "I'm just dead; I'm not gone."
This weekend, Dickinson's rambunctious spirit lives on in a series of special events being held in Midtown.
On Saturday afternoon, his wife of 44 years, Mary Lindsay Dickinson, will conduct a reading and multimedia presentation from Dickinson's forthcoming memoir, "The Search for Blind Lemon," at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.
On Monday evening, the Levitt Shell will host the second Jim Dickinson Folk Festival. The show will feature performances from friends, family and fellow musicians, including the North Mississippi Allstars, Lucero, Mojo Nixon, Jimbo Mathis, and the Sons of Mudboy, featuring Sid Selvidge.
And on Tuesday night, Cody Dickinson will close out things, performing as part of Rhodes College's Pub Concert series. All three events are free and open to the public.
Despite the psychic hole he left behind, the Dickinson family has continued to operate the family's recording studios in Coldwater, Miss. "We've been busy with a lot of projects," says Mary Lindsay. "That was a great wish for Jim: that the studio should live on."
Meanwhile, posthumous recognition has continued to come to Dickinson. In February, Luther Dickinson and the Sons of Mudboy were nominated for a Grammy award for the gospel-folk tribute to Jim Dickinson called Onward and Upward. In April, Dickinson was awarded a Brass Note on Beale Street. And last month, he was the subject of a symposium held at New York City's Lincoln Center, during a Memphis music weekend.
Dickinson's musical legacy also continues to be explored. Next year, the UK label ACE Records will release a compilation of Memphis psych songs from the 1960s that will include a number of rare Dickinson productions. The label is also working on pulling together a career-spanning set focusing on the various strands of Dickinson's nearly 50-year career.
Chiefly, however, the family has been focused on bringing to fruition Dickinson's last great work, his autobiography, "The Search for Blind Lemon."
Mostly completed before his death, the book is a philosophical look at music and his life through the 1970s. Mary Lindsay has presented a multimedia program based around the memoir at University of North Carolina and the University of Memphis in the past year. Her appearance at the Brooks this weekend will include airing of rare audio and film clips, as well as a post-event Q&A with the family and music historian Robert Gordon.
"The book was a really special thing to Jim. He always said he was resigned to being a history teacher," says Mary Lindsay. "Then he got to a point in his career where he said, 'Well, I turned into a history professor, I just teach musicians.'"
That educational view of music-making helped endear Dickinson to a younger generation of alternative acts beginning in the 1980s.
Dickinson would impart his young charges with always-cheeky and frequently profound axioms, espousing a philosophy that prized creativity over commercialism: "Hits are in baseball, singles pick each other up in bars, and your royalty lives in a castle in Europe," he would famously say.
Still, nothing in his life meant more to Dickinson than his connection to the Bluff City.
Although he was born in Arkansas, he liked to say he was "conceived in Memphis" and he remained dedicated to the city's music, becoming a kind of ambassador and guardian for the city's past and present, while always looking forward to its future.
That dedication, says Mary Lindsay, continues to be repaid by his friends and former charges.
"We put together this celebration of Jim's legacy not knowing what to expect from the city and the public," she says. "But the love and gratitude that has poured back to us is amazing. Jim loved this city, and Memphis hasn't forgotten."
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Honoring Jim Dickinson
All three events are free. For more information, go to brooksmusuem.org, levittshell.org and cal.rhodes.edu.
"The Search for Blind Lemon: Words, Music, Photos and Films from Jim Dickinson's Memoirs"
3 p.m. Saturday at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Overton Park.
"The Jim Dickinson Folk Festival"
6 p.m. Monday at the Levitt Shell at Overton Park, featuring the North Mississippi Allstars, Lucero, Mojo Nixon, Sons of Mudboy, Jimbo Mathis and the Tri-State Coalition.
Cody Dickinson
9 p.m. Tuesday at Rhodes College's Lynx Lair.
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