This album was cut after about 6 years of not only being on the road together, but living together down in Oxford, MS, and was just a short drive from the holy ground, Zebra Ranch. Again Jim Dickinson produced with Kevin Houston, the fastest gun in the west, engineering it was also done in a matter of days but these sessions were a blur to me. I was highly medicated.
JIM ONCE AGAIN WHIPPED ME INTO SHAPE by calling me out on my songwriting methods at the time. I would grind out a few phrases or a verse or what not while we were on the road and Jim told me they would be better if I dint finish the songs on the clock in the studio with a head full of whatever pills I was taking at that particular time. Soon after I started writing songs I was really proud of and then it just clicked.
Jim Dickinson taught me so much, and I still learn things to this day as he would tell me things I didn’t quite grasp at the time or thought I did anyways and every now and again I recall something he said and I understand it now. He knew I was beginning to come into my own soon after and was very proud, I think, of where I was going with songwriting and music in the months before he passed.
This album also was the time when I got to know the rest of the Dickinson family. Mary Lindsey Dickinson is one of the finest human beings to walk the earth as well as both of her sons. Lucky to know them and call them my friends. At this time the bands live show was hot and we were like brothers but directions were changing, ambitions were not aligned, and some of us were preparing for a life without music.
Soon after recording this album, I wasted about a year on partying and laying up with pretty Oxford girls in houses their daddies paid for. I woke up one day, kicked the hard heavy stuff, packed up my shit and told Morris to truck up. We headed to the Ozarks. I always went back to see Jim and Mary Lindsey whenever I could. Jim even had me come sing on his album Killers From Space and his record company cut me a check. I bought new tires with the winnings.
On the song “Eloise” its just me and Jim singing — I’m timidly hanging way in the back — one of the finest days of my life. Last time I talked to Jim he told me my songwriting was beginning to be “top drawer” and I was singing my southern heart out.
I miss Mr. Jim everyday. I never seen Jim talk to anybody like he talked to me. It was like Lombardi. I think Jim could size you up at first encounter and figure out how to make you respond. Most other cats hanging around were not like me, they were top notch musicians, playing music since birth, and easy going passive type people. He knew a mule when he saw one. That’s what made him such a great producer. He got the best out of every individual that came before him.
I like to think he was smiling from above watching Cody, Kevin and I work on Land Of The Free together. It sure felt like he was…and is.
World boogie is coming.