11. Jim DickinsonDixie Fried
I was first played this by a friend, Nick Combe, whom I’d met at a Scientists gig. He lived next door to me in the bedsits at Earls Court and was a super-eight film maker. His little room stank of rolls of film, and after work he’d make little, mad, animated epics in his tiny bedsit. The couple in the bedsit opposite actually had a pet hare that would sometimes hop into my room if I left the door open if I popped out to the rather horrible communal loo!
Anyway, Nick ended up as the drummer when we started Gallon Drunk, but before that, when we were neighbours, he played me all these amazing records I’d never heard before such as the first Panther Burns album, Alex Chilton, the Silver Apples and this, Dixie Fried. The minute I hear the opening track I’m taken back there. It’s such a soulful album, and the vocal is so powerful on tracks like ‘The Strength Of Love’, and ‘How She Dances’. There’s a stupendously good Dylan cover on there, ‘John Brown’, that turns into a sort of psychedelic nightmare.
This record is the essence of Memphis music and is seemingly completely overlooked. It was out of print for what seemed forever, and I only had a cassette of it that Nick made me. But it’s finally re-released. There’s a fantastic chapter about it in Robert Gordon’s superb book, ‘It Came From Memphis’, which also covers Alex Chilton in depth, as well as Furry Lewis, and the general history of Memphis counter-culture. Hugely recommended.
