Hill Country Revue
The stage of Tennessee jam band festival Bonnaroo is an unlikely setting for the year's most important blues recording, but young firebrands North Mississippi Allstars pulled off a creative coup in June of 2004 with theirHill Country Revue. The concert teamed patriarchR.L. Burnsideand his guitarist and rapper sons, the lateOthar Turner's fife and drum band, theBlack Crowes' Chris Robinson, and eccentric producer-pianist Jim Dickinson, the father of Allstars Luther and Cody Dickinson, with the wiry trio. The historic results handily blend all the racial, geographic, and cultural elements of the genre with adventurous musicality. Burnside is present more for his inspiration than his musical contribution. But his sons carry on the tradition while pushing its borders into hip-hop and six-string psychedelia. If there’s a star here, though, it's guitarist Luther Dickinson, who playfully quotesDuane Allman,Jimi Hendrix,Jimmy Page, and the elder Burnside, and then adds a level of tonal and textural exploration to his performance that makes him a one-man defibrillator for the genre--insurance that the heart of the blues will keep pumping into the future.--Ted Drozdowski