North Mississippi Allstars – Meet Me In The City

I had never heard of this band until recently. What a rootsy down to earth band. I had some headphones listening to this band. Fantastic is what I’ll say about them.

The North Mississippi Allstars formed in 1996 in Hernando, Mississippi. Brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson grew up immersed in Hill Country blues through their father and legendary producer and musician Jim Dickinson. He worked with everyone from the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan to Big Star and Alex Chilton. Blues was not something the Dickinson brothers discovered later; it was already in there. The brothers are credited with guitar, vocals, cigar box guitar, drums, bass,  drums, percussion, vocals, guitar, and synthesizer.

The band took its name from the North Mississippi Hill Country blues style, a cousin to Delta blues, associated with artists like Fred McDowell, R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Otha Turner. Unlike the regular 12-bar structures of Chicago or Delta blues, Hill Country blues leans heavily on repetition and groove that builds as it goes.

This song was written by Junior Kimbrough in 1992. It’s been covered by The Black Keys and others. The North Mississippi Allstars released it on their album World Boogie Is Coming. It has a groove that is irresistible. Luther Dickinson’s guitar is the engine that makes it run, sliding around that beat like it’s got its own ideas on what it’s about. Cody Dickinson locks in underneath with a drum pattern that’s less about fills and more about being hypnotic. It’s just plain out cool.

This is some cool blues going on here with that groove. This sounds like it came out of a bar somewhere while slightly rattling the glasses. I’m going to give you a bonus song called Peaches that I liked on the first listen. Peaches came off the album Up and Rolling, released in 2019.

Meet Me In The City

Meet me over in the city
In the city, things so fine
We’ll get together, ah yes we will girl
Oh yes, we will
We’ll make everything alright now, honey don’t, oh honey don’t
So please, please don’t leave me right now girl
‘Cause right now, right now, oh no no no

You got me baby, you got me girl
You got me where you want me, whoa ho-ho-ho yeah
Now girl I know you are satisfied baby
So please, please don’t leave me right now girl
‘Cause right now, right now, oh no no no

Sometimes I think I will baby
Then again my, my-my-my-my-my-my mind will change
Now tell me don’t do it no more
So please, please don’t leave me right now girl
‘Cause right now, right now, oh no no no

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

36 thoughts on “North Mississippi Allstars – Meet Me In The City”

  1. Pingback: North Mississippi Allstars – Meet Me In The City – MobsterTiger

  3. One of those bands I’d heard OF but hadn’t heard. A bit of trivia: Shardé Thomas, who plays fife on this album, is the granddaughter of Otha Turner. I first heard her grandfather on the album “Memphis Swamp Jam” (1969, Blue Thumb) playing with Napoleon Strickland – both fife players (and maybe an acquired taste – the fife is pretty shrill).

    I let the “Meet me in the City” video keep running – the more I heard, the more I liked. Try “Mean Ol’ Wind Died Down” if you haven’t heard it yet. It was maybe the third song to come up. Some beautiful slide guitar over a bass that just doesn’t quit.

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    1. I’m ashamed because I don’t know Othar Turner…I heard of him but never heard him. I’ll have to check some out.
      I took a short trip through their albums…some fantastic music… with their connection to their dad I’m sure they have played with a lot of cool people.

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      1. The rhythmic feel of the shuffle beat is often described as “swinging” their eighth notes, and it was a prominent feature of their sound, especially in the early to mid-1970s on songs like ‘Truckin’’. U.S. Blues’, ‘Deal’ and ‘I Need a Miricle’. 

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      2. Yes…very hard and very unlikely they will ever get there. You can hear influences once in a while though. Athletes go through the same thing as well…it’s hard to live up to pop at times…very few times do they pass them. I think of two athletes Ken Griffey and Barry Bonds passed their dads in ability..

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  7. Like we talked about before with this kind of music it’s close to the ground and so rich with all that earth feel. I cant resist it. ‘Peanes’ just keeps sinking into my head. Smooth and then that wicked guitar. This bunch has it going on.

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    1. They really do have it going on. Those brothers are some kind of talented as well. It’s a lot of different styles in this…the shuffle beat of the Dead in spots and other things…plus that guitar work. Very soulful sounding and yea down to earth.

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      1. I saw that in your write-up. I was talking more about one man with a guitar and a drummer, singing in a black style. I remember how shocked I was when I finally saw The Black Keys for 2 reasons: it was just 2 people, and they were white.

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    2. These guys predate the Black Keys. Yes, I’m a Mister Know It all. 🙂 But in a comment that I shall post below, having heard of them and having heard them is two different things and I bless all that is holy that we can discover what we missed the first time around

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    1. Yea I almost had one of those too. Sad story that I probably told you before. Knew this professional guitar player and he was playing with a band that opened up for Blackberry Smoke…he called me and said he had a Cigar box guitar to give me that a guitar maker gave him…he got killed that night while coming home on his motorcycle…just an awful thing.

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  11. One of the great things about the world we live in is that the music is timeless. Yes, I have heard these guys before, Yes, I loved what I heard. And then the earth rotated a little and I moved on to other things and forgot what I heard. But coming back to it, or discovering it new for the first time, is a miracle that I plan to repeat over and over again. And not just for these guys, There is so much excellent music that we don’t catch the first time around. It would humble me except it is so good it needs to be celebrated loudly.

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    1. Thats my whole thing…going back and finding the music we might have missed or the ones we knew but didn’t have the time for at the time. Personally…the only thing I heard about these guys before was the name of their first album…Shake Hands With Shorty…that stuck with me but I never listened.

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