James Luther Dickinson, a musician, producer and patriarch of Southern music, died Sunday after heart bypass surgery. He was 67. In the 1980s I worked with this guy, John W. King, who was an A&R guy at Stax Records in Memphis back in the day. One of his co-workers at Stax was a young Bill Browder, who would later become the country singer T.G. Sheppard. And one of his good buddies was James Luther Dickinson.
If you have read this blog for any amount of time, you know I have not hidden my affection for talented singer, songwriter and guitarist, Juliana Hatfield. Her album, Become What You Are, remains one of my favorites and, in my opinion, was one of the best albums of the 90s. She recently took part in the Bruce Springsteen’s “Hangin’ Out On E Street” project with an excellent cover of “Cover Me” and she also just put out a new CD, How To Walk Away. Juliana was kind enough to take time out of her busy schedule to answer a few questions for us about the past, the present and the state of the music industry.
30DAYSOUT: Tell me about how you first got interested in music and who were some of your earliest musical influences..
JH: I took piano lessons from my Mom, in our house, when I was a child. Both of my parents played piano and that was the first music I heard. Live piano music was always in the air. Later I was heavily influenced by 1970’s AM top 40 American radio: the Eagles, ELO, Steely Dan, the Carpenters, Olivia Newton-John, America, Bread, etc.
Went to see this movie, The Watchmen, over the weekend. So did a lot of other people, apparently – it’s the No. 1 movie right now. This dark, violent superhero tale was pretty entertaining and had some fairly good choices of music on the soundtrack: “All Along The Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix, “The Sounds of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel and a hilariously elongated version of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A’ Changin’ ” over the opening credits montage.
But the most ear-catching tune is the one that plays as the closing credits roll: a rockin’ punk version of Dylan’s “Desolation Row” by My Chemical Romance. The band is supposedly recording a followup to their hit album The Black Parade, and it’s been said the new work will be more “punk rock” than normal. If their version of “Desolation Row” is any indication, it ought to be a fun listen.
30 Days Out 