It seemed the North Mississippi Allstars could have picked up any item in the Crystal Bay Casino and made it boogie on Sunday, Feb. 2. The band’s second Crown Room appearance was an amazing display of musicianship before a sellout audience. Lightnin Malcom and Stud, the grandson of T-Model Ford, started the festivities with a celebration of Hill Country music in the direct spirit of Ford, R.L Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. North Mississippi Allstars and brothers Dickinson, Luther on slide guitar and Cody on drums, came on stage and Malcolm picked up a bass and the party continued with relentlessly groovy Southern blues jam rock. The four-hour show included plenty of the new album “World Boogie is Coming” and Malcolm’s “Rough Out There.” The players traded instruments throughout the night and brought out tin can and cigar box stringed guitars, a washboard with wah-wah pedals and a bass drum and megaphone. The players, who played sellout shows the previous two nights at San Francisco’s Independent, didn’t take the pedal off the accelerator the entire evening. Luther and Cody Dickinson are involved in many projects and the NMA began to slow down until their father Jim Dickinson died. Recalling his advice that the brothers play their best music when they do it together have rededicated themselves to the North Mississippi Allstars, and 600 lucky concertgoers witnessed it in Tahoe onstage.
