Luther_Dickinson_Don_Van_Cleave

Luther Dickinson Hooks Up with Weird Sisters

The North Mississippi Allstars’ Luther Dickinson flexes his creative muscles as a producer and guitarist while celebrating a broad range of roots music styles on Solstice, featuring a revolving cast of collaborators billed as Sisters of the Strawberry Moon.

Guest vocalists on the album, out March 22 via New West Records, come from different genres and include Amy Helm (Levon Helm of The Band’s daughter), Americana performer Amy LaVere, folk duo Birds of Chicago, fife and drum traditionalist Sharde Thomas, and gospel singers the Como Mamas. Each singer interprets material they brought to the project with the help of fiddler and Third Man recording artist Lillie Mae, organist Rev. Charles Hodges (Al Green), and Grammy winner Alvin Youngblood Hart. Vocals were recorded live in one or two takes, adding a sense of spontaneity and making the whole production sound more like a traveling show than a studio creation.

A Luther Dickinson and Sisters of the Strawberry Moon tour of City Winery locations stops in Atlanta on March 14.

Photo by Don Van Cleave.