Keys to the Kingdom North Mississippi Allstars is proud to announce the release of its first studio album in 2 years. The new album, Keys to the Kingdom, is a celebratory declaration of life in the face of death.
In the beginning, a father passed away and a child was born. Luther and Cody Dickinson lost their father, Memphis music legend Jim Dickinson, only months before Luther became one. Jim had always told them, "You need to be playing music together. You are better together than you will ever be apart." Coincidentally, the Dickinson brothers were not together when Jim passed. At that moment, they were both off on their own, Luther with The Black Crowes and Cody with Hill Country Revue.
So in the spring of 2010, the North Mississippi Allstars went into the studio to create a record that could help them cope with the loss, and, at the same time, rejoice in his honor. The first line of Jim's self-written eulogy was, "I refuse to celebrate death." Luther, Cody and Chris Chew took heed and aimed to celebrate life instead; and the songs for the new record, Keys to the Kingdom, came pouring out of their souls.
"In the end," Luther says, "We recorded our best country blues and Mississippi rock 'n roll record yet -- as if our lives depended on it." Ten years after the release of their debut album, Shake Hands with Shorty, Chew sums it up: "This is grown folks music."
On Keys to the Kingdom, some children are born and others become adults; naïve idealism gets squashed by stark realism, yet there is no choice but to move on, and so they do -- the quest for joy, celebration and truth palpable in every note of the mighty NMA sound.
