In 1969, when the Rolling Stones were recording in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, he went down to hang out, and ended up playing piano on "Wild Horses" -apparently Stu couldn't play minor chords on the piano-he was also present and (probably) helped with the arrangement of their version of Mississippi Fred McDowell's "You Got To Move" which was also recorded that day. James Luther Dickinson went on to play in numerous bands in Memphis. He wasn't a musician, but he sang as he worked, unaccompanied, and when he realized I was interested in music, he brought in a man who taught me this technique that I learned to play from." When it came to something he didn't know, he brought in an expert. How to shoot craps, how to throw a knife underhanded-the important lessons in life. "Alex Tiel taught me everything he thought was important to teach a nine-year-old white boy. "Everybody learned it from the yardman." says Dickinson. In Gordon's book It Came From Memphis, Dickinson recalls his early education in suburban Memphis: He loved the Bar-B-Q-maybe a little too much- and earlier this year Dickinson underwent heart surgery, and never made a full recovery. "He must be coming from the bank.Dickinson takes care of a lot of things, but himself is not one of them."Īpparently, there was a lot of truth to that statement. He paused for a moment, as we watched him amble across the street and past us. As we sat there eating our sandwiches, Robert looked up and out the window. Sometime in the late 90s, I was in Memphis, and went to meet writer Robert Gordon for lunch at a midtown deli. I saw him play a few times in intimate surroundings here in New York: first at the Lakeside Lounge, accompanied by Eric Ambel (who wrote a fine tribute to Dickinson HERE) and again at Joe's Pub a few years later. I never met Dickinson, and always just took it for granted that someday I would. I think God gave Sam just a little extra." The same could be said about him. His contribution to American music puts him in the company of men like his mentor Sam Phillips, about whom he said: ".God created all men equal. On the inner groove of Beale Street Saturday Night, amongst the various engravings that exist on old LPs, are four words in quotations: "WORLD BOOGIE IS COMING." This was a saying of Jim Dickinson's, who died on Saturday.
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