Digging for Analog Gold at Dial Back Sound

Inside Dial Back Sound’s unassuming walls, the stories are as memorable as the music. When Iggy and the Stooges dropped by to record a cover of Junior Kimbrough’s “You Better Run,” the punk/rock icon menaced the studio, shirtless just like at a show, his Stooges blasting back at him through the monitors while he barked his vocals.

“We do that a lot,” laughed Matt Patton, co-owner of Dial Back and bassist for Drive-By Truckers and The Dexateens. “Especially if we’re having trouble getting a singer to come out of the shell, we’re just like, forget about all this, we’re gonna blast this track at you.” Continue reading →

How Convergence is Revolutionizing Transportation AV

The convergence of audio and video with control systems is shifting both the role and potential of AV technology in transportation facilities.

From the control room to the concourse, the integration of AV into IP networks—traditionally the domain of IT managers—is changing how transportation facilities communicate with passengers. While in the past AV was limited in its ability to reach transportation audiences in real time, now the industry is embracing the benefits of full-scale convergence. Continue reading →

Greg Iles’ ‘Unvarnished Truth’ About Racial Tension Culminates in ‘Mississippi Blood’

Tearing open the wounds of the past is an uncertain business. When that past involves smoldering racial tension and injustice, it can be incendiary.

Author Greg Iles has learned, however, that dealing with the past also can cauterize what would otherwise fester. When Natchez Burning, the first book in a trilogy that deals bluntly with the complexities of race in Mississippi, began bringing black and white folks together, he felt relief.

“Until it came out, nobody had any idea what would happen,” he said. “But John Evans from Lemuria (Books in Jackson) told me, four months after it came out, ‘You’ve done something that nobody else I’ve seen come through here has done yet. You’ve got white people and black people reading about race.’” Continue reading →

Drive-By Truckers’ Matt Patton Rides the Great Divide

Matt Patton was reading the Curtis Mayfield biography “Traveling Soul” on a recent flight home from Denver, following the first Drive-By Truckers shows of the year, when a profound coincidence hit him.

It was the weekend leading into the Martin Luther King Jr., holiday, and the chapter he was on happened to deal with Mayfield’s reaction to the assassination and aftermath of the Civil Rights leader. On top of that, he was traveling in support of his band’s most overtly political album, the latest in a 20-year history filled with songs about controversial political figures, such as George Wallace.

Patton, who plays bass in Drive-By Truckers, may have been groggy after the late-evening flight and drive back home to Water Valley, but his disbelief at the confluence — and how history seems to cycle — was palpable. Continue reading →

Vasti Jackson: The Soul of Mississippi

There’s no sensory experience like an empty nightclub waiting for its moment.

The way the neon hangs in the room, drawing attention away from the dark corners where revelries past collect. The way the hurried staff burst from double-doored corridors to set a centerpiece or load beer into a cooler, the anticipation rising as guests arrive.

The event on this particular night, 10 years in the making, celebrates the Mississippi Blues Trail, the maze of 194 signposts throughout the state marking significant artists, places and events in the development of the blues. And there’s hardly a person alive who understands the significance of the blues, what it is and what it’s not, more than Vasti Jackson. Continue reading →

Three Things You Didn’t Know About The Beatles

Looking back with Geoff Emerick as the classic ‘Revolver’ marks its golden anniversary

Geoff Emerick arrived at EMI studios in London as an assistant engineer right around the same time The Beatles inked their first recording contact. While George Martin gets credit for being the “fifth Beatle,” Emerick was also there from the beginning and had just as much influence over the band’s evolving sound.

As chief engineer on the most groundbreaking recordings The Beatles made, beginning with Revolver—which turns 50 this month—Emerick pioneered recording techniques like tape loops and backwards recording, helping usher in the modern recording era.

During a recent talk at the GRAMMY Museum Mississippi in Cleveland, Emerick drew back the curtain on some of the band’s most important recording sessions. Continue reading →

Historic Trail Celebrates Success of Country Music in Mississippi

Nashville might get credit for being the hub of the country music industry, where the deals are made and records are cut, but the music itself doesn’t always come from Music City. A lot of times, the music comes to it.

Country music’s roots begin farther south along the Natchez Trace Parkway, across two state lines and deep into Mississippi, where the organic, traditional music of Appalachia intersected the rural blues music of the Delta. Continue reading →

Every Piece Tells a Story

Giving new life—and preserving histories—through antiquities trading

Eric Nielsen had just turned the corner down a dark and neglected hallway when the backhoe began ripping away the exterior of the historic Hayes Funeral Home, the first African American-owned business in Memphis. He had, at best, an hour before the building would be uninhabitable. Continue reading →

Ramblin’ Man: Luther Dickinson Returns to His Hill Country Roots

Sound check is running long at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall in Tallahassee, Fla., where Luther Dickinson is playing alongside friends JJ Grey, Anders Osbourne and Marc Broussard.

Tonight is a one-off gig for their band, Southern Soul Assembly. In less than a week Luther will play a handful of solo dates, and in two weeks he’ll be back on stage with the North Mississippi Allstars, the gig that has made it all possible.

It’s the life of a traveling musician circa 2016—and despite his successes bringing the musical style pioneered by Hill Country forefathers R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Otha Turner to new audiences, being a bluesman still isn’t easy. Continue reading →

Juke Joint Sushi

Jack’s By The Tracks has 44 chairs and 40 bar stools, and on any given Friday night they’re usually taken.

On those evenings, the live music spills from open doors and onto Pascagoula’s historic Krebs Avenue. It’s hard to notice when the occasional train zooms past from the music and dancing shaking the floor.

This shotgun-style sushi shack, lovingly nicknamed a “five-star dive bar” by locals, packs in diners and revelers for entertainment and an evolving menu that combines Gulf
South cuisine with Asian delicacies and sometimes whatever brainstorm or request ends up on the blackboard. Continue reading →