When they serendiptiously crossed paths onstage with Phil Lesh & Friends, JD Simo and Luther Dickinson's musical souls spoke to each other. They started jamming together leading them to cut Do The Romp at JD's home studio, combining their appreciation of hill country blues, spirituals, swamp rock, and Afrobeat in a modern grease and grime.
Dickinson has the North Mississippi Allstars and toured with the Black Crowes and John Hiatt, while JD Simo earned his stripes in the Don Kelley Band at Robert's Western World before forging an impressive solo career and working studio magic for Dave Cobb, Jack White, BeyoncƩ, Chris Isaak, and Baz Luhrmann's Elvis movie.
Individually, JD Simo and Luther Dickinson are building their own legacies as solo artists, sidemen, songwriters, and guitar heroes. Together, they're a creative force to be reckoned with, making their own version of amplified American roots music. On the pair's first collaborative album, Do The Rump, the musicians trade blistering guitar solos, take turns at the microphone, and turn their classic influences ā including hill country blues, spirituals, swamp rock, and Afrobeat ā into something contemporary, reinterpreting a number of their old-school favorites into eclectic, electrifying anthems.
The partnership began onstage, where Simo and Dickinson first shared the spotlight as touring members of Phil Lesh and Friends. Dickinson had already established himself as co-founder of the Grammy-winning duo North Mississippi Allstars, as well as a celebrated guitarist for acts like Black Crowes and John Hiatt. Similarly, JD Simo had built an audience not only with his solo project, but also as a session musician for Jack White, BeyoncƩ, Chris Isaak, and Baz Luhrmann's Elvis movie.
With custom T-style and hollowbody axes, this road warrior travels the byways of rock, country, and hard-core Mississippi hill country blues to make a new album, Belle of the West, with Luther Dickinson.
Somewhere on a two-lane blacktop between Detroit and Indianapolis, Samantha Fish is cruising along with her band, thoroughly in her element as she looks ahead to her next gig. āOn the road, always!ā she says over the crackle of her cell phone. āBut yeah, thatās why we do this: Music is the universal language that we all speak and can understand, and thereās something people need in that, you know?ā
Sheās just 28, but after a decade of playing in front of all kinds of crowds, from the smallest clubs to the biggest festivals, Fish radiates an upbeat worldliness that has seeped into her musicāa rangy mix of garage rock, blues, country and soul. Along the way, sheās opened for Buddy Guy at his Legends club in Chicago, shared bills with Johnny Winter, George Thorogood, Corey Harris, and Tab Benoit, and garnered praise from The New York Times as āan impressive blues guitarist who sings with sweet power.ā Itās been quite a journey from her hometown in Kansas City, Missouri, where she started out jamming on drums with her father, her uncles, and their friends before switching to guitar when she was in her mid-teens.
āMy father played guitar,ā she says, āand itās funny because the style of music would change based on whoever was over at the house. We listened to the radio growing up, so there was all this rock ānā roll, and if his brothers were over, theyād be playing guitar to Black Sabbath or Black Label Societyāsome kind of metal. And then some friends might play bluegrass or West Coast swing or country musicāAmericana, songwriter-type stuff. And my mom sang in church, so you can see how the lines are connected.ā
Primarily self-taught, she picked up everything she could from her idolsāStevie Ray Vaughan, Keith Richards, Angus Young, Slash, the Heartbreakersā Mike Campbellābefore she discovered the North Mississippi hill country blues sound of R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and the Fat Possum label. At 17, she started hanging around Knuckleheads, the hottest blues-country saloon in Kansas City, and eventually drew the attention of owner Frank Hicks, who got her time onstage and the chance to cut her teeth with a slew of different blues and roots artists, including Benoit and Michael Burks. In 2010, on the recommendation of St. Louis blues guitarslinger Mike Zito, she landed a deal with the late Luther Allisonās label Ruf Records (founded in 1994 by Allisonās manager, Thomas Ruf), and sheās been making her mark ever since.
Belle of the West is Fishās latest album, with a history of its own. Recorded near the end of 2015, the sessions were produced by the North Mississippi AllStarsā Luther Dickinson at his father Jim Dickinsonās famed Zebra Ranch studio in Coldwater, Mississippi, just south of Memphis. At first, Fish and Dickinson had conceived of a more acoustic-based follow-up to 2015ās Wild Heart, which theyād also worked on together in the fall of 2014. But as more guest musicians came into the foldāincluding singer and fiddle player Lillie Mae, known to many for her high-profile stint in Jack Whiteās Lazaretto band, as well as Mississippi roots guitarists Lightninā Malcolm and Jimbo Mathusāthe album took on a larger scope. [See sidebar, āMeanwhile, Back at the Ranch.ā]
During the session, with plenty of encouragement from Dickinson, Fish made some discoveries while playing hollowbody guitarsāparticularly the Gibson ES-390. The fat, feedback-hugging tone is a departure from the thinline Tele-style sound she gets with her custom Delaney āFish-o-caster,ā and the new tonal direction inspired her to dig deeper into the underlying melodies of the songs before she tracked her solos.
While cutting guitar tracks for Belle of the West, Fishās Category 5 amp was in Zebra Ranchās small room, and she would stand close to the large room, where Luther Dickinson would crank the backing tracks to simulate a live atmosphere.
āYou know, we went into the studio with the best intentions of making an acoustic record,ā Fish says with a laugh, ābut Iāve got Luther in there with me, and weāre both guitar players, so we ended up with something a little heavier, and Iām glad we did. He introduced me to hollowbody guitars and the different feedback you can get when you ring out certain notes, and that really influenced my solos a lot. So itās a semi-acoustic recordāthatās the term we finally landed on when it was all said and done.ā
As luck would have it, Belle of the West was tracked quicklyāoften just first or second takes with the full band, which also features Amy LaVere on upright bass and Tikyra āTKā Jackson (of Southern Avenue) on drums, playing live on the floor. But almost as soon as the album was mixed, Fish sensed the urge to get another project out of her system.
āAs a little time passed, I felt like we needed something higher octane to put out beforehand,ā she says. She hooked up with Detroit-based producer Bobby Harlow to tap into the no-frills, garage-rock spirit that inspired her as a kid. āThatās how the Chills & Fever concept was formed. We recorded with members of the Detroit Cobras, brought in a horn section from New Orleans, and put together this really high-energy big band to do soul and rock ān roll covers from the ā50s and ā60s.ā When stacked against Belle of the Westās rootsy, soulful sound, Chills & Fever, which was released in March 2017, sounds unusually punked-out and jagged. āI know theyāre dramatically different,ā Fish explains, ābut that was the idea. Itās two different concepts, Detroit and Mississippi, but it made sense to put out these two albums in one year for just that reasonābecause theyāre such concept records.ā
Having recently relocated to New Orleans, Fish is poised to expand her musical horizons even further, but she still feels the pull of the Mississippi blues, no matter where she calls home. āTo me, itās the core of rock ānā roll music. Itās this unpolished, guttural, raw sound that people seem to gravitate to over and over again. It just gets redone and modified. Itās weird how we kind of remove all the slickness every few years, and come back to this real, almost aggressive, thing. I think itās just because thatās where our hearts are, you know? That authenticity resonates with people.ā
Twenty-six guitar and bass greatsāincluding Ben Harper, Kaki King, Megadethās Dave Mustaine and David Ellefson, J Mascis, and Savagesā Gemma Thompsonādiscuss the record that altered their musical universe forever.
Most of us have a crystal-clear picture imprinted in our psychesāa stark moment of when our younger, more impressionable selves first heard a recording that blew our minds, and from that point forward, everything would be different. In those moments of discovery, turned obsession, worship, and deep learning, a bold appreciation and respect emerges for someone elseās expression. Itās the personal joy of experiencing art that moves you. In a human existence riddled with many uncertainties, inspiration is something to hold onto. The possibilities are endless with music, and the journey never ends. We hope you enjoy going down memory lane.