Luther Dickinson’s father Jim Dickinson — the Memphis record producer, session pianist, and musical polymath who produced Ry Cooder, Big Star, the Replacements, and the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” — played Luther a Bo Diddley record when he was young. Luther has been playing in open tuning ever since. This is the most compressed available biography of how the son of a Memphis legend becomes the leading exponent of North Mississippi Hill Country blues in his generation: a father plays a Bo Diddley record, a boy hears the drone, the open-tuned hypnotic pulse of it, and understands that this is where he needs to be. Luther Dickinson was born on January 18, 1973, in Memphis, Tennessee, and he has been in open tuning for fifty years, playing the slide guitar tradition of North Mississippi Hill Country bluesmen like R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Otha Turner — the music of a specific geographic pocket of Northern Mississippi where the blues evolved in a uniquely isolated way, without the commercial smoothing of the Chicago or Texas traditions, maintaining a raw, hypnotic, modal quality that the North Mississippi Allstars have spent twenty-five-plus years carrying into the twenty-first century. He also recorded with the Replacements when he was thirteen years old, which is the other thing you need to know about Luther Dickinson: he has been in the room with the most important records of his era since before most musicians know what they want to be.
The Journey
The North Mississippi Allstars — formed in Hernando, Mississippi in 1996 by Luther and his brother Cody Dickinson (drums, electric washboard) — are the primary vehicle for the Hill Country blues tradition in contemporary American music. The band draws directly on the specific musical heritage of North Mississippi: the fife and drum tradition of Otha Turner, the hypnotic, repetitive drone blues of R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, the raw, largely unprocessed guitar approach of musicians who played because playing was what the culture required rather than because the commercial music industry had provided a career pathway. Luther absorbed this tradition as a local inheritance — his family’s connection to the Memphis and Mississippi music scenes giving him the specific cultural authenticity of someone who grew up in proximity to the tradition rather than discovering it academically as an adult. The North Mississippi Allstars’ recordings are not a student’s tribute to a tradition but a practitioner’s continuation of it.
His Black Crowes membership — from 2007 to 2011, recording Warpaint and Before the Frost alongside Rich Robinson — placed his guitar work in the highest commercial profile of his career, demonstrating that the specific skills he had developed in the Hill Country blues context translated to the arena rock context of one of American rock’s most celebrated bands. The 150-watt Fuchs amp he used with the Black Crowes — which he subsequently returned because he hadn’t played it in a while — represents the commercial rock amplification appropriate for the Black Crowes context, different from the more intimate amplification of the North Mississippi Allstars trio format but serving the same fundamental purpose: pushing the guitar’s acoustic character through a high-quality valve amplifier at appropriate volume.
His guitar philosophy has evolved most recently toward the Lollar Regal pickups that he describes as his “new sound” — “Those wide-range style pickups are so clean, chimey, and bell-like that you can hear each note in every chord.” This description — the ability to hear each note in every chord — is the specific tonal goal of a guitarist who plays in open tuning with behind-the-slide fretting, where the harmonic complexity of the chord voicings requires maximum transparency from the pickup to communicate each voice clearly. The Lollar Regal’s wide-range design provides this transparency; it allows the full acoustic complexity of the guitar’s open-tuned resonance to reach the amplifier without the midrange coloration that conventional single-coil or humbucker pickups impose. “That’s my new sound” — said with the enthusiasm of a guitarist who has been searching for a specific quality and has found it in a pickup design he hadn’t previously used.
His preferred amplifier setup captures his musical philosophy in its most concentrated form: “a clean amp with tremolo and reverb and a dirty amp.” Clean and dirty, simultaneously, running in stereo for solo, duo, and trio contexts. The clean amp with tremolo and reverb is the atmospheric, ambient voice — the space-creating dimension of the sound. The dirty amp is the drive, the aggression, the physical forward presence of the Hill Country blues tradition’s raw guitar sound. Both at the same time, the player moving between them dynamically, the two tonal colors available without switching between configurations. This is the specific tonal intelligence of a guitarist who has spent decades thinking about how the guitar can serve the music he plays, and who has found the answer in a configuration that holds both options simultaneously available.
Background: Jim Dickinson’s Son, the Hill Country Blues Inheritance, and Behind-the-Slide Fretting
The Jim Dickinson connection is the foundational biographical context for understanding Luther’s musical identity. Jim Dickinson — who died in 2009 with the words “World boogie is coming” as his last pronouncement, which became the title of a North Mississippi Allstars album — was one of American music’s most culturally embedded and artistically omnivorous figures: a session musician who played piano on “Wild Horses” for the Rolling Stones at Muscle Shoals; a producer who worked with the Replacements, Ry Cooder, Big Star, and Primal Scream; a musical thinker whose understanding of the roots of American music was as deep as any professional’s in the country. Growing up in that household meant growing up with the full breadth of American vernacular music as the natural environment — not as a subject of study but as the air breathed and the conversations overheard. Luther’s specific identification with the North Mississippi Hill Country tradition is partly a choice and partly an inheritance: his geographic proximity to the tradition, his family’s musical world, and the specific cultural environment of Memphis and the Mississippi-Tennessee borderlands are all components of the authenticity with which he inhabits the music.
The Hill Country blues tradition that the North Mississippi Allstars draw from is specifically different from other blues traditions in ways that matter to the guitar approach. R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Otha Turner — the primary sources of the Hill Country tradition — played a predominantly modal, hypnotic, drone-based blues that differs from the 12-bar Chicago blues form and the Texas blues’ showmanship and technical complexity. The Hill Country tradition is about repetition, groove, the hypnotic quality of a guitar pattern that doesn’t resolve in the conventional sense but continues, accumulates, and builds through repetition into a kind of musical ecstasy. Open tuning is essential to this approach: the drone strings provide the constant, the sliding and fretting provide the variation, and the hypnotic combination of the two is the music. Luther inherited this vocabulary and developed it through the behind-the-slide technique — adding the specific harmonic complexity of fretted chord voicings behind the slide to the drone tradition that the open tuning enables.
The Replacements session at age thirteen is the biographical detail that establishes Luther as something more than a genre specialist. The Replacements — one of the most significant American rock bands of the 1980s — were produced by Jim Dickinson on albums that required a guitarist with specific qualities of feel and flexibility. Luther, at thirteen, was in that room, contributing to recordings that would become part of the rock canon. This early professional exposure — the specific experience of recording at the highest level of American rock music before many people have made their first public performance — established both his technical competence and his musical confidence in ways that subsequent decades of performing have confirmed and developed.
His time with the Black Crowes (2007-2011) represents the commercial peak of his public profile, placing the North Mississippi Allstars’ approach in a band context with broader mainstream visibility. The two albums recorded with the Crowes — Warpaint (2008) and Before the Frost…Until the Freeze (2009) — contain guitar work of genuine quality that demonstrates the adaptability of his approach: the Hill Country blues vocabulary applied to the Black Crowes’ Southern rock context, producing something that serves the band’s identity while retaining his own voice. Rich Robinson, the Crowes’ primary guitarist, provided the rhythm context in which Luther’s lead and slide work operated — a working relationship that the Guitar World interview describes as “surprising jams” that revealed unexpected musical compatibility between two guitarists with different primary musical identities.
The Rig: Luther Dickinson’s Guitars, Amps, and Effects
Guitars
The Gibson Luther Dickinson ES-335 signature is the most formally documented instrument in Luther’s arsenal — his signature model developed with Gibson Memphis in 2013/2014. The signature ES-335 features a pair of dog-ear P-90 pickups, a Bigsby tremolo, and an antique sunburst finish based on his father Jim Dickinson’s Gibson — the finish is specifically named the “Jim Dickinson burst,” embedding the biographical inheritance in the instrument’s visual identity. The replacement of the standard ES-335 humbuckers with P-90s is the critical specification difference: the dog-ear P-90’s specific combination of single-coil bite, warmth, and harmonic complexity provides the tonal range that Luther’s open-tuned, behind-the-slide approach requires. The P-90 in the neck position — which the Guitar Player description identifies as his primary tonal identity — provides the specific warm, throaty character of the single-coil-sized pickup in the semi-hollow body’s neck position: rich, sustaining, with the clarity to project the full harmonic content of his open-tuned chord voicings. The ES-335’s semi-hollow construction adds natural acoustic warmth and resonance beyond what a solid-body instrument provides, and the Bigsby tremolo enables the specific vibrato technique that the slide guitar tradition uses alongside the slide itself.
The Gibson ES-330 — the fully hollow-body cousin of the semi-hollow ES-335 — appears in Luther’s documented arsenal as a primary live instrument. The ES-330’s fully hollow construction produces a warmer, more acoustically resonant tone than the ES-335’s semi-hollow maple center block construction: deeper, more complex, with the specific quality of a hollow acoustic body amplifying and coloring the string vibration before the pickup converts it. This fully hollow character suits the Hill Country blues tradition’s warmth and organic quality, where the acoustic body’s natural resonance is part of the desired tonal palette. The ES-330 also features P-90 pickups — either stock or replaced with aftermarket units appropriate for Luther’s specific tonal requirements.
The Lollar Regal wide-range pickup is Luther’s current primary pickup configuration — described in the Guitar Player 2024 feature as his “new sound.” “Those wide-range style pickups are so clean, chimey, and bell-like that you can hear each note in every chord. That’s my new sound.” The Lollar Regal is a wide-range humbucker design based on the vintage wide-range humbucker developed by Seth Lover for Fender in the 1970s — a design that is technically hum-cancelling (like a standard humbucker) but has a significantly wider coil spacing that produces a much more single-coil-like tonal character. The specific “clean, chimey, and bell-like” description captures what the wide-range design provides over standard humbuckers: more transparency, more harmonic complexity, more of the acoustic guitar’s natural character reaching the amplifier without the compressed, mid-heavy coloration of conventional humbucker designs. For open-tuned chord voicings with behind-the-slide fretting, this transparency is essential: each note in the chord — the fretted notes behind the slide and the slide note above — must speak individually, and the Lollar Regal’s wide-range character ensures they do.
The Premier Guitar Rig Rundown documents Luther using Hagstrom, Epiphone, and Hofner hollowbody guitars on the North Mississippi Allstars tour — reflecting the pragmatic, music-first approach of a guitarist who uses quality instruments appropriate for each musical context rather than maintaining strict brand loyalty. Hagstrom’s Swedish-made hollowbody guitars have a specific bright, clear character; Epiphone’s hollowbodies provide the Gibson family warmth at a more accessible price point; Hofner’s German-made instruments have the specific semi-hollow character associated with the vintage British rock and European jazz tradition. Each provides a different acoustic voice for different songs and contexts.
Luther Dickinson plays primarily in open tunings — established as his fundamental approach by his father playing him Bo Diddley records as a child. Bo Diddley’s characteristic use of open tuning (often open G or variants) for his rhythm drone patterns established the template; Luther has extended this through the North Mississippi Hill Country tradition’s specific open tunings that suit the modal, drone-based approach of R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. He describes the guitar fretboard philosophy associated with open tuning: “Thinking about the guitar fretboard horizontally can be hipper than vertically because the melody is there. It gives the phrasing a vocal quality. If you can connect your ear and your mind with your heart and your hand playing intervals on one or two strings, then the whole guitar just kind of unlocks itself.” This horizontal thinking — single-string melodic movement across the fretboard rather than vertical scale patterns — is the specific approach that slide guitar in open tuning enables: the slide moving horizontally across one or two strings to trace melody, while the other fingers fret harmonically supportive notes behind it.
Amps
The Category 5 signature amplifier is Luther’s current primary amplification — described in the Guitar Player 2024 feature as the amplifier through which the Lollar Regal pickups produce his “new sound.” Category 5 Amplifiers is a boutique manufacturer specializing in vintage-voiced valve amplification with the specific warm, natural character appropriate for blues and roots music applications. The specific Category 5 models in Luther’s rig are used in his preferred “clean with tremolo and reverb” and “dirty amp” stereo configuration — the clean/dirty simultaneous pairing that represents his mature amplifier philosophy.
The defining element of Luther’s amplification approach is the simultaneous clean-and-dirty pairing: “My preferred setting is a clean amp with tremolo and reverb and a dirty amp. That’s my favorite tone.” Running two amplifiers — one clean with tremolo and reverb providing atmospheric texture and ambient warmth, one dirty providing aggressive forward presence and drive — simultaneously produces a stereo guitar sound with both the atmospheric depth of the clean amp’s reverb and tremolo and the raw aggression of the dirty amp’s natural valve saturation. This approach is particularly appropriate for the solo, duo, and trio contexts where Luther’s rig description applies: without a full band providing rhythm and harmonic density, the two-amp simultaneous approach fills more of the sonic space and provides more tonal variety within the guitar’s role. “I like to be mono if it’s a full band, but if it’s solo, duo, or trio, I like to go stereo.”
For his Black Crowes period, Luther used a 150-watt Fuchs amplifier — the high-output boutique head from the Ohio-based manufacturer known for their Dumble-influenced designs. The 150-watt Fuchs provided the arena-scale output needed for the Black Crowes’ concert context, with Fuchs’s specific combination of Dumble-style preamp warmth and high-powered output stage producing a clean, articulate, high-headroom tone appropriate for a band whose stage sound required the guitar to project clearly across large venues. Luther “turned over the 150-watt Fuchs I used when I played with the Black Crowes because I hadn’t played it in a while” — a pragmatic gear decision consistent with the “what serves the current music” philosophy.
Effects
Luther uses the Boss DD-7 Digital Delay with tap tempo as his primary delay unit — specifically emphasizing the tap tempo capability: “I have to have tap-tempo. I can’t stand for the delay to be out of time.” The tap tempo allows the delay time to be set precisely to the song’s tempo — the slapback echo behind the slide playing stays rhythmically coherent with the musical context rather than floating independently. “I love hearing delay bouncing back and forth” — the stereo delay’s specific quality of a signal that ping-pongs between the two amps, creating the perception of rhythmic movement and depth that a single-delay setting doesn’t produce. “You’re playing against yourself with slap back” — the single echoing repeat of slapback delay creates the illusion of a second guitarist doubling the part, which is particularly useful in the solo and duo contexts where the North Mississippi Allstars often perform.
Like Sonny Landreth in the previous entry, Luther Dickinson plays behind the slide — fretting notes and chord voicings with the fingers behind the glass while the slide plays above the fret. His specific articulation of the technique: “I’m addicted to playing behind the slide, letting fretted notes pop out to provide something solid you can hang your hat on amidst all the squirrelly slide microtones.” The “squirrelly slide microtones” are the specific quality of slide guitar that produces pitch between the frets — the gliding, bending, sometimes uncertain pitch of the slide as it moves across the string. The fretted notes behind the slide provide “something solid” — a rhythmically and harmonically anchored reference point that gives the slide’s microtonal freedom a structure to relate to. This is a different musical rationale for the behind-the-slide technique from Sonny Landreth’s polyphonic approach: where Landreth develops it into a full two-voice independent counterpoint, Luther uses it to anchor the slide’s microtonal freedom in harmonic specificity.
The Foxrox Octron appears in the North Mississippi Allstars’ documented gear — an analog octave pedal that adds a signal one or two octaves above or below the guitar signal. In the Hill Country blues context, the octave effect can add the specific deep, organ-like quality of a doubled-down signal to the guitar’s fundamental, creating a more massive low-end presence appropriate for the primal, driving quality of the Hill Country tradition’s groove-based approach.
Radial Engineering products appear in the Premier Guitar Rig Rundown for Luther’s North Mississippi Allstars tour — the same Radial signal routing and DI products used by guitarists throughout this series for clean, reliable signal distribution to multiple amplifiers. For the stereo clean/dirty two-amp setup, Radial’s switchers and splitters provide the signal distribution needed to send the guitar signal to both amplifiers simultaneously with consistent levels and without signal degradation.
Various Boss stompboxes appear in Luther’s documented rig alongside the DD-7 delay — Boss’s standard professional stompbox range providing reliable, road-worthy effects for the touring context. The specific Boss models other than the DD-7 are not individually identified in available sources, but the Boss family’s consistent presence alongside the boutique Category 5 amplifiers and Lollar pickups reflects the pragmatic combination of boutique and standard professional equipment that characterizes many touring guitarists’ approaches.
The open tuning itself — the specific resonant character of a guitar with all strings tuned to a single chord — functions as a tonal element beyond its harmonic implications. Open-tuned strings vibrate sympathetically when adjacent strings are played, creating a richer, more complex fundamental resonance than standard tuning. The ES-330 and ES-335 semi-hollow bodies amplify this sympathetic resonance acoustically before the pickup converts it, producing the specific “drone” quality that the Hill Country blues tradition uses as its primary tonal foundation. The open tuning is not just a harmonic convenience but a physical acoustic choice that shapes the guitar’s fundamental voice.
The North Mississippi Allstars discography from their debut through Set Sail (2022) represents one of the most sustained commitments to a specific regional blues tradition in contemporary American music. Each album deepens the relationship: new musical tools (Lollar Regal pickups, Category 5 amps, the continued development of behind-the-slide fretting) applied to the same foundational vocabulary. Tradition and development are not opposites but complements. The tradition provides the foundation; the development provides the reason to keep building on it.
The “World Boogie Is Coming” album title — from Jim Dickinson’s last words — is the clearest statement of the cultural responsibility Luther has accepted: the world boogie that his father announced is the same boogie Luther continues to play every night. The Bo Diddley record that set him on the open-tuned path is the same record that the Hill Country blues tradition flows from. The squirrelly microtones of the slide inhabit the spaces between fixed pitches that the fretted notes behind the glass define. The clean amp and the dirty amp run simultaneously, holding both the atmospheric and the aggressive in the same moment, because the music requires both. Because the tradition contains both. And because Luther Dickinson is the musician who carries the tradition.
Playing Style & Tone Philosophy
Luther Dickinson plays guitar with the cultural depth of someone who grew up in the presence of the music he plays, and the technical sophistication of someone who has spent decades developing the tools to express what that culture means. The Hill Country blues tradition’s specific quality — the hypnotic, modal, drone-based approach that differs from the 12-bar form and from the technical complexity of other blues traditions — requires a guitar approach built on groove and repetition rather than on melodic virtuosity, and Luther has developed within this tradition by deepening rather than escaping it. The behind-the-slide fretting technique adds harmonic complexity to the tradition’s modal base; the open tuning adds sympathetic resonance; the clean/dirty two-amp approach adds atmospheric depth; the Lollar Regal pickups’ transparency makes every note of every chord audible. All of these are enrichments of the tradition rather than departures from it.
“Thinking about the guitar fretboard horizontally can be hipper than vertically because the melody is there.” This observation — which applies both to single-string horizontal melody playing and to the slide’s specific movement across strings — captures the Hill Country tradition’s approach to the guitar as a melody-and-drone instrument rather than a chord-and-scale-pattern instrument. The melody exists in the horizontal movement along a single string; the drone exists in the open strings ringing beneath. Combining these two dimensions — horizontal melody and vertical drone — is what open-tuned slide guitar does, and it is what Luther has made his primary expressive vehicle.
The “squirrelly slide microtones” description is the most honest available account of what slide guitar actually sounds like and what makes it musically interesting: the specific pitch ambiguity of the slide — the microtones between the frets, the gliding uncertainty of a note that isn’t fixed by a fret wire — is the feature rather than the bug. Conventional technique eliminates pitch ambiguity; slide technique inhabits it. The fretted notes behind the slide that provide “something solid” are the rhythmic and harmonic anchor that makes the microtonal freedom musically meaningful rather than arbitrary.
How to Sound Like Luther Dickinson
The Luther Dickinson Hill Country blues tone requires: a semi-hollow or hollow Gibson (ES-335 or ES-330) with P-90 or Lollar Regal wide-range pickups; open tuning (open G or open D being the most commonly used variants in the Hill Country tradition); a tubular glass slide on the fretting hand; a clean amp with tremolo and reverb running simultaneously with a dirty amp; Boss DD-7 delay with tap tempo set to match the song’s tempo; and the behind-the-slide fretting technique that provides the “solid” harmonic anchors among the “squirrelly slide microtones.”
| Control | Setting (0–10) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Clean Amp (Tremolo + Reverb) | Volume: 6; Treble: 7; Bass: 5; Tremolo: medium speed; Reverb: 4 | The atmospheric, ambient voice in the stereo pair. Tremolo at medium speed — not too fast (nervous) or too slow (lazy), the specific vintage tremolo pace of 1950s-60s American amplifiers. Reverb at 4 for room ambience without excessive wash. This amp provides the spatial depth and shimmer of the Hill Country blues atmosphere. |
| Dirty Amp (Natural Valve Saturation) | Gain: 7; Volume: 7; Bass: 6; Mid: 7; Treble: 6 | The aggressive, forward voice in the stereo pair. Pushed to natural valve saturation — the specific warmth and compression of a valve amplifier working near its output stage’s limit. This amp provides the raw, physical presence of the Hill Country blues tradition’s guitar sound. |
| Boss DD-7 Delay (Tap Tempo Essential) | Tap to song tempo; 1 repeat; Mix: 25% | Must be in tempo with the song. Tap the tempo with the foot switch before playing. One clean repeat at 25% mix — the slapback quality that “plays against yourself.” Too many repeats creates clutter; too high a mix drowns the dry signal. In stereo: ping-pong between the two amps for the specific left-right movement that Luther describes loving. |
| Lollar Regal / P-90 — Neck Position | Tone: 7 (slightly rolled) | The neck pickup’s warmth combined with a slightly rolled-back tone control produces the specific “throaty” quality associated with Luther’s primary tone. Each note in the chord should be audible — the Lollar Regal’s transparency is the point. If the chord voicings sound compressed or indistinct, the pickup is the wrong choice; the wide-range design should allow each string to speak individually. |
| Open Tuning | Open G or Open D (or Open E) | Tune to an open chord — all strings to a single major chord. Open G (D-G-D-G-B-D low to high) or Open D (D-A-D-F#-A-D) suit the Hill Country tradition. Open tuning enables the drone strings, the sympathetic resonance of the hollow body, and the straight-bar major chords at every fret for the slide. No standard tuning — the Hill Country blues is made in open tuning. |
| Slide Placement | On ring or middle finger; directly above fret | Luther uses the ring finger for the slide (unlike Landreth’s pinky) — which means he has fewer fingers available for behind-the-slide fretting but more physical leverage on the slide itself. Position directly above the fret wire for correct pitch. The behind-the-slide fretted notes provide the “solid” harmonic reference amid the microtonal slide movement. Practice both simultaneously. |
Influence & Legacy
Luther Dickinson’s influence on contemporary American roots music is the influence of a genuine cultural carrier — someone who has maintained and developed the North Mississippi Hill Country blues tradition in a commercial musical context that might otherwise have marginalized or lost it. The North Mississippi Allstars’ twenty-five-plus years of active recording and touring have kept the R.L. Burnside-Junior Kimbrough tradition audible and vital in a world where that tradition’s originators have died and where the commercial music infrastructure provides little natural space for music of its specific character. This carrying and continuation — the specific work of maintaining a living tradition by performing and developing it rather than simply documenting it — is the most significant cultural contribution the band and Luther have made.
His Black Crowes period broadened the audience for his approach and confirmed its adaptability to different musical contexts. The Warpaint album — recorded with the band at the peak of their reunion commercial success — contains guitar work that demonstrates the Hill Country blues vocabulary applied to the Southern rock arena context with full authority. His ongoing session work, film composition, and collaborative projects (the Southern Soul Assembly and various other configurations) confirm the breadth of application that the specific technical and cultural foundation he has developed enables.
For the Hill Country blues tradition that directly precedes and shapes Luther’s approach, the broader series context includes Sonny Landreth’s “Slydeco” development at Sonny Landreth’s gear history — a parallel behind-the-slide fretting innovator whose Louisiana context produces related but distinct results from the Mississippi context. The Southern rock tradition that the North Mississippi Allstars inhabit alongside the Hill Country blues connects to Charlie Starr’s Blackberry Smoke approach. And the specific Jim Dickinson Memphis music world connection — the R.L. Burnside recordings on Fat Possum that Jim produced, the same Memphis music infrastructure that shaped multiple entries in this series — runs through the entire American Southern music tradition documented in this section of the series.
The Bo Diddley record. The open tuning. The slide on the ring finger. The clean amp with tremolo and reverb running simultaneously with the dirty amp. The Lollar Regal pickups through the Category 5, every note in every chord audible, the squirrelly microtones of the slide inhabiting the spaces between the fixed pitches of the fretted notes behind the glass. World boogie is coming — Jim Dickinson’s last words. His son is still playing it.
Frequently Asked Questions: Luther Dickinson Guitars & Gear
What guitar does Luther Dickinson use?
Luther Dickinson’s primary guitars are Gibson hollowbody and semi-hollowbody instruments — specifically the Gibson ES-330 (fully hollow) and ES-335 (semi-hollow) family, both fitted with P-90 pickups rather than the standard humbuckers. His 2013/2014 signature model — the Gibson Luther Dickinson ES-335 — features dog-ear P-90 pickups, a Bigsby tremolo, and the antique sunburst “Jim Dickinson burst” finish based on his father Jim Dickinson’s Gibson. His current preferred pickup is the Lollar Regal wide-range humbucker, which he describes as his “new sound”: “Those wide-range style pickups are so clean, chimey, and bell-like that you can hear each note in every chord.” Additional hollowbody instruments documented in his touring rig include Hagstrom, Epiphone, and Hofner models.
What amplifiers does Luther Dickinson use?
Luther’s current primary amplification is his signature Category 5 amplifier, used in his preferred stereo clean/dirty pairing. His tonal philosophy: “My preferred setting is a clean amp with tremolo and reverb and a dirty amp. That’s my favorite tone.” The two amps run simultaneously — the clean amp providing atmospheric depth with tremolo and reverb, the dirty amp providing raw, aggressive forward presence. For solo, duo, and trio contexts he runs stereo; with a full band he goes mono. His Black Crowes era used a 150-watt Fuchs amplifier, which he subsequently returned after it sat unused for an extended period.
What is the Hill Country blues tradition that Luther Dickinson plays?
The North Mississippi Hill Country blues is a distinct regional tradition from Northern Mississippi — specifically from the area around Marshall, Benton, and Tate counties — associated primarily with artists R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Otha Turner. The tradition is characterized by modal, hypnotic, drone-based blues that differs from the 12-bar Chicago and Texas blues forms: the music is built around repetition and groove, with a raw, largely unprocessed guitar approach and the specific atmospheric quality of music that evolved in a relatively isolated way from the commercial blues mainstream. Luther Dickinson grew up in proximity to this tradition through his family’s Memphis music connections, and the North Mississippi Allstars have spent twenty-five-plus years carrying the tradition forward.
Who was Jim Dickinson and how did he influence Luther?
Jim Dickinson (1941-2009) was a Memphis-based record producer, session pianist, and musical thinker of major significance in American music. His credits include playing piano on the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” at Muscle Shoals, producing albums for the Replacements, Ry Cooder, Big Star, and Primal Scream, and producing sessions for R.L. Burnside on Fat Possum Records. His last words were “World boogie is coming” — which became the title of a North Mississippi Allstars album. Jim’s influence on Luther was foundational: playing Bo Diddley records that set Luther on an open-tuned path that has continued for fifty years; providing the musical environment and cultural connections that gave Luther his earliest professional exposure; and embodying the specific combination of roots-music depth and creative expansiveness that defines Luther’s own musical approach.
What is Luther Dickinson’s behind-the-slide technique?
Luther’s behind-the-slide technique involves fretting notes behind the slide to “provide something solid you can hang your hat on amidst all the squirrelly slide microtones” — a different rationale from Sonny Landreth’s more counterpoint-oriented version of the same physical technique. While Landreth develops the technique into a full two-voice independent polyphony, Luther uses fretted notes behind the slide primarily as harmonic anchors: specific, fixed-pitch reference points that give the slide’s microtonal freedom a harmonic structure to inhabit and resolve against. Both approaches require the slide on a finger that leaves others free to fret; Luther typically uses the ring finger, leaving the index and middle fingers available for fretting behind.
What were Luther Dickinson’s years with the Black Crowes?
Luther Dickinson was the lead guitarist for the Black Crowes from 2007 to 2011, recording two studio albums: Warpaint (2008) and Before the Frost…Until the Freeze (2009). His addition to the Crowes was described in a Guitar World interview as producing “surprising jams” between him and Rich Robinson that revealed unexpected musical compatibility. He did not join the Black Crowes for their 2013 reunion tour, returning to focus on the North Mississippi Allstars. The Black Crowes period used a 150-watt Fuchs amplifier for the arena performance context, different from the more intimate boutique amplification of the Allstars setup.
How did Luther Dickinson develop his preference for open tunings?
Luther’s open tuning preference was established when his father Jim Dickinson played him Bo Diddley records as a child. Bo Diddley’s characteristic use of open tuning for his signature drone-rhythm approach planted the seed; the North Mississippi Hill Country blues tradition that Luther subsequently immersed himself in uses open tuning as a foundational element of its modal, drone-based approach. Luther has described his thinking: “Thinking about the guitar fretboard horizontally can be hipper than vertically because the melody is there.” The horizontal single-string melodic thinking that open tuning enables — particularly for slide guitar — is the specific approach that the Hill Country tradition uses, and that Luther has developed into the behind-the-slide fretting technique that defines his current playing approach.
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