The Smiley Smile Message Board

...a cult hero if there ever was one. You'd meet him via Ry Cooder's music, or the Stones', or the Byrds', or the Replacements', or Alex Chilton's, or a couple of thousands of other people's. Check the credits.

(copied this from the New Yorker website:)

August 17, 2009
Jim Dickinson, R.I.P.
Jim Dickinson, who died over the weekend at the age of sixty-seven following triple-bypass heart surgery, wasn’t exactly an unsung hero of American music. To anyone who loved rock and roll and paid attention, he was sung repeatedly. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1941, Dickinson became a fixture on the Memphis scene of the mid-sixties, contributing session work to a number of songs, most notably the Jesters’ 1966 turbocharged Chuck Berry homage “Cadillac Man.”

In the early seventies, Dickinson and a group of other local musicians formed a group known as the Dixie Flyers and proceeded to back up a number of famous rock and soul artists, including Aretha Franklin; Dickinson also played piano on the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” and produced nearly every unhinged American rock-and-roll treasure, from Alex Chilton to the Replacements to Mojo Nixon. As a solo artist, Dickinson was a limited vocalist but a unlimited storehouse of knowledge and passion regarding American music, and his 1972 album, “Dixie Fried,” is a collector’s favorite that should be better known, as are some of his less mainstream projects, like the spoken-word album “Fishing with Charlie,” which he released on Birdman records, in 2006. Though Dickinson is gone, he lives on, in part, through his sons Luther and Cody, who are members of the roots-rock group the North Mississippi All-Stars.  

Sad news....

Jim Dickinson and Bob Dylan crossed paths; Jim played keyboards on Dylan's Time Out Of Mind album.

That Jesteres record is really good.

When I read about the passing of these relatively unknown giants of music it makes me wish that the players had been credited more openly over the years rather than the occasional mention on a lyric insert.

Some bands or producers have done this but not often enough.  For example, I have a spector LP which clearly lists the players and their instruments in readable size font on the back cover.      And the Jeferson Airplane actually included a photo of Nicky Hopkins on Volunteers.  The way it turns out for the most part is that only the most devoted and detail oriented music fans know who any of these people are.  Seems a shame.

Maybe we should also remember another overlooked person who recently died; the great Billy Lee Riley

So Sad!