“Bob said to me, ‘If you’ve got Dickinson, you don’t need anybody else.’”
—DANIEL LANOIS, Harp magazine
“He’s this … This genius from down around Memphis. The man’s a damn resource. Jim Dickinson’s always been a fabulous producer. It’s just that most of what he’s done has been invisible to the naked eye.”
—RY COODER
“You see, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have always suspected that Jim has visited this planet several times before. How else could he be so intuitively creative and knowledgeable?”
—TOM DOWD, producer/engineer, Atlantic Records
“Jim Dickinson is an improbable recombinant—a demonic original Sun Records rocker who reads Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren. He can play the shit out of his National Steel and then jump on the piano and lay down the no doubt best key of C picking you’re ever going to hear.”
—JERRY WEXLER, Atlantic Records
“First time I met Jim Dickinson, he rented the studio. Man, he like to scare me to death. I’d just come off the road with Jerry Lee, and you know, he’s kicking over piano stools. Jim, he was wilder’n Jerry Lee. But I loved his music.”
—ROLAND JANES, engineer and session guitarist, Sun Records
“Dickinson had a very spontaneous approach to recording and showed me a lot about making truly untamed music.”
—ALEX CHILTON, Box Tops/Big Star
“Dickinson is great. I tried to get him to play on my solo album but he had moved and nobody had his current phone number.”
—BILL WYMAN, the Rolling Stones
“In his book, Country, Nick Tosches calls Jim Dickinson’s debut album ‘one of the most bizarrely powerful musics of this century.’”
—ROBERT PALMER, author of Deep Blues
“When I think of Jim, I can’t help but think of the work he’s done for my pictures with Ry Cooder. I certainly can’t imagine anyone I’d rather sit down with and talk about the very brief era when rock ’n’ roll was something other than pop music. His tastes agree with mine, which proves I must know something about music, because he knows more than anyone.”
—WALTER HILL, director
“My father is a treasure. His presence inspires my respect, creativity, and love. I love playing his music and playing my music for him. He is a master …”
—LUTHER ANDREWS DICKINSON, North Mississippi Allstars
“When I think of my father, I think of a hard but sensitive man, youthful but wise. As a producer he shows me how to bring the best out of my music. As a father, he helps me to bring the best out of my person. Jim Dickinson will always be my greatest mentor and Jim Dickinson’s music will always be my greatest influence. I’ll always be proud when I think of my father.”
—CODY TAYLOR DICKINSON, North Mississippi Allstars, producer of Take Me to the River
“I no longer think of Jim Dickinson as a guy who makes music like no one else, though that is sure enough true. I think of him and the music he makes as something a lot bigger. Sort of like the sky: dark one moment, full of light another, thundering and blowing you away awhile then sending breezes of ramshackle-rigged transcendent grace to raise and deliver you from it all.”
—NICK TOSCHES, from the liner notes to “Dinosaurs Run In Circles.”