The brothers Dickinson return with a grinding blues ’n’ roll homage to their home turf’s tough sound, spiked by slicing slide guitar from Luther Dickinson and guest Kenny Brown.
Although the North Mississippi Allstars have been making music as a band and touring the world for 21 years—Prayer for Peace, arriving June 2, will be their 17th full-length album—the group’s feet have always remained planted firmly in the soil of the Magnolia State’s hill country. That’s where Luther and Cody Dickinson’s father, the famed producer, pianist, songwriter, and raconteur Jim Dickinson, relocated his family after decades in Los Angeles specifically for the benefit of his sons’ musical education.
Obviously they learned well—forging a highly original sound from the foundation of the region’s legendary musicians, including R.L. Burnside, Othar Turner, Junior Kimbrough, and, from an earlier generation, Fred McDowell. That sounds drives “Run Rooster Run,” an exclusive Premier Guitar preview from Prayer for Peace. Luther Dickinson’s fat signature slide guitar grinds over his brother’s powerhouse drumming—which manages to propel the song like a freight train while still threatening, like the best Mississippi juke joint music, to jump the rails.
“‘Run Red Rooster’ is a true story about a friend of ours who ran to freedom from a road block,” says Luther. The song also has a Memphis connection. “The song was recorded live on the floor at the legendary Royal Studios [the historic ground zero of Hi Records] by Boo Mitchell,” he adds, “and features Kenny Brown on that Burnside boogie guitar. Keep an eye out for the remix in the coming weeks.”
Luther and Cody revisit the Burnside catalog elsewhere on Prayer for Peace with a new version of Burnside’s “Long Haired Doney,” and while the album takes its name from an Allstars’ original track, they also cover McDowell’s classic gospel-blues, “You Got to Move.” In keeping with that theme, the album was recorded at studios in St. Louis, Kansas City, Brooklyn, Austin, and at their late father’s Zebra Ranch in Hernando, Mississippi. Notable guests joined them along the way, including bassist Oteil Burbridge, Jack White’s bassist Dominic Davis, and Shardé Thomas, the granddaughter of Othar Turner, who, like her granddad, leads a Mississippi fife and drum group. As usual, the brothers Dickinson are currently on tour. Dates are listed on the North Mississippi Allstars homepage.
Analyzing instruments in the lab can yield intriguing data, but when it comes to real-world choices, your ears should have the final say.
In my previous column, we looked at a study that analyzed measurements taken from a simplified instrument that went through an unusual transformation from neck-through to bolt-on and, finally, set-neck design. (If you missed it, you can read the column here.) The study found few tonal differences and almost none in sustain, so it concluded that “although limited in scope, this study does suggest that correlation between sustain and neck joint type may not be of practical significance.”
Case closed? Not really, according to another study by a team of scientists at the French Acoustic Society (Société Francaise d’Acoustique). They took an alternative path and tested three identical instruments with different neck joints—neck-through, set-neck, and bolt-on.
Before you say there’s no such thing as “identical instruments,” consider this: The instruments were built in the same European luthier-training center and had the same hardware. Of course, there’s a difference between “the same” and “identical” when it comes to possible disparities in woods, hardware, and setup. Still, once you are aware of this, and build and adjust with care, the variations should be small.
Fig. 2 — Set-neck spectrogram. Spectrograms courtesy of Société Francaise d’Acoustique
The measurements included 3-D spectrograms of each model, rendered with the signal taken directly from the electric output while the same note was played. Fig. 1 shows the spectrogram for a neck-through, Fig. 2 is for the set-neck, and Fig. 3 corresponds to the bolt-on joint. Spectrograms include a lot of information, but they’re easy to read. These graphs plot volume and frequency versus time, and they show a sustaining note that’s split into its decaying fundamental and upper harmonics.
As always, these graphs don’t tell us whether these three instruments have good tone—just that they are different. In the graphs, we can see the long sustaining fundamental and first harmonics of the neck-through, the faster decaying and bumpy fundamental of the set-neck, and the even shorter sustaining fundamental and longer first harmonics of the bolt-on build. So the spectrograms pretty much confirm the tonal preconceptions most bassist have about these three constructions.
These scientists conducted a second experiment on “driving-point conductance,” which is a way to measure mechanical energy transfers between structures. Whenever such a transfer happens, it sucks up vibrational energy at a certain frequency from the string. A big transfer at the fundamental frequency would indicate a dead spot. The measurement is much like the tap-tuning many luthiers do on wooden blanks, only it’s done on a full instrument and is less esoteric. A hammer knocks on a certain part of the fretboard and the mechanical response in frequency and amplitude is measured. Doing this for all notes gives you a full sonic map of an instrument, and it helps explain the earlier spectrograms.
Fig. 3 — Bolt-on spectrogram. Spectrograms courtesy of Société Francaise d’Acoustique
So now that we’ve seen this data, should we all head for neck-through instruments? After all, you’d think many bassists might be interested in a long decay of the fundamentals because supplying these tones is part of our primary job. Shouldn’t fundamentals always remain present as long as possible?
Sustain is often cited as a quality factor by players and builders, but the popularity of instruments like the P-bass somehow contradicts this notion. In fact, the results of the driving-point conductance test might indicate why this type of bass is often plagued by dead spots. But again, in no way does this signify good or bad tone.
Fortunately, the researchers had 22 musicians subjectively evaluate the instruments in their own words and rate them in such categories as “clarity,” “timbre,” and “depth.” In addition to having problems understanding what we musos might mean when describing an instrument’s sound and how this translates into physical terms, the researchers encountered something surprising: The top ranking was led by the bolt-on with the neck-through falling into the middle ranking most of the time. In other words, many players preferred the bolt-on’s imperfect liveliness over the evenly sustaining neck-through. Another surprise for the authors was how rarely the term sustain was mentioned, especially considering its prominence in marketing and discussions about bass design.You can read the entire paper online, using its title as a search term: “A vibro-acoustical and perceptive study of the neck-to-body junction of a solid-body electric guitar” by A. Paté, J. L. Le Carrou, B. Navarret, D. Dubois, and B. Fabre.
Montréal builder Jean-René Gosselin serves up a convincing spring reverb emulator with some intriguing twists.
Built by Jean-René Gosselin in Montréal, Quebec, the Moby Depth spring-reverb emulator is driven by a Belton BTDR-3 chip and includes unusual features such as a side-loop for inserting a chain of effects that’ll only be heard when Moby is activated, and a regeneration circuit governed by a toggle and a single knob. Other controls: reverb level, decay, tone, and wet/dry mix knobs.
Although certain settings can make Moby sound more like a slapback echo, with the right mix and decay settings it yields a nice spring approximation that runs the gamut from subtle/traditional to insanely “underwater”—in short, offering much of what surf and outboard-reverb nuts crave. Gosselin’s design also deserves kudos for a carefully tuned tone knob that yields warmth or splashiness, minus the treble overload of many spring emulators with wide-ranging, hard-to-dial-in tone controls. And the bonus regen feature (essentially like a delay’s feedback function) adds psychedelic, lo-fi sound smudges that greatly expand Moby’s mojo.
Test gear: Baritone Jazzmaster with Seymour Duncan Antiquity I pickups, Jaguar HC50 with Weber Gray Wolf speaker
Clip 1 — Baritone Jazzmaster & Goodsell Valpreaux 21 - Reverb - Max, Tone - Noon, Decay - Max, Mix - 1 - 30, Regen - MaxClip 2 — Baritone Jazzmaster & Goodsell Valpreaux 21- Reverb - 1 O'clock, Tone - Min, Decay - Noon, Mix - Noon, Regen - Off
Ratings
Pros:
Compelling range of traditional to out-there spring-’verb tones. Cool regeneration circuit.
Cons:
Subtle pitch-modulation artifacts. Regen footswitch preferable over side loop. Large footprint.
Street:
$220
Jonny Rock Gear Moby Depth
jonnyrockgear.com
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