Dickinson, Jim

“There aren’t many shamans still in our world. Most have been ground down to dust, and those left are laying low, hoping to dodge the bullets surely headed their way by the pop culture police. But off the beaten path and down miles of quiet two-lanes in northern Mississippi, the trees overgrown with kudzu and the fields silent with tales too terrible to mention, lives Jim Dickinson. He is one of the last record producers who has seen all that the world of music has to offer, and continues to believe human beings playing instruments and singing songs hold the secrets of the universe.… Among those he’s worked with are names big and small, hugely successful and completely unheard of; The Rolling Stones, Alex Chilton, Spiritualized, Mudhoney, etc., etc. 
 
“As a performer, Dickinson has notched plenty of prime-time hours on sessions and stages everywhere. He’s been in bands capable of setting listeners’ ears on fire, and recorded songs that have permanent positions on radio play lists across the planet. But underneath it all, like the true Southern gentleman, he is a storyteller. Because no matter what form of emotional reality Dickinson is working in, he is above all else telling a tale, with his hands on a keyboard, his voice at the microphone or his body behind a recording console. He will use whatever it takes to sell that story to the listener. In that way, he is almost like an auctioneer, spinning out music as he takes the performance to its highest bid in an attempt to be better and smarter and more alive, plugged into the huge beating heart at the center of all true art forms. Now, Dickinson is stripping his talent down to its essence on Fishing with Charlie, using only words to paint the pictures he is so good at. And what potent portraits they are.… 
 
“Being from the South, Dickinson has a stake on the losing side of a war a few remember, and some cannot forget. His mesmerizing voice echoes that final irony, realizing that the deck is stacked in the house’s favor, but also drawn into the game because at the end of the day it really is the only one in town. Deal the cards, throw the dice and take a leap into the ultimate drama of life.… ”  
—Bill Bentley, June 2004