A Conversation with Luther & Cody of NMA (cont.)

PM: Let's see, are either of you guys what you'd call spiritual cats?

LD: Man, gospel music has always--like we grew up going to this Baptist church in Memphis where my grandmother played. And it's like the music has also been what touched me. Gospel music is my spiritual outlet.

CD: Chris is definitely the spiritual heart of the North Mississippi Allstars. [Chris Chew, the bassist.]

PM: Really?

LD: Yeah.

CD: He watches it--he's way into contemporary gospel. And he has a lot of live DVDs of serious new stuff, like Byron Cage and Fred Hammond are a couple guys that I can remember. But we watch those all the time--

LD: Like Kirk Franklin.

CD: --back there, Chris's live DVDs. So before the show, a lot of times, man, I'll be laying in my bunk watching gospel from Chris. But he's definitely the one when it comes to that.

PM: Wow. I hope to meet him. [To find out more about Chris, be sure to visit his cool site, bassbychew.com.]

LD: He's been on the road so long and he's not changed a bit! He's not changed a lick, man.

PM: [laughs] I was with Kirk Franklin one time when I was working backstage and he was doing a big production number with a bunch of his people. And he came off, and he'd just done hella dancing and singing in this number. And I said, "Oh, Kirk, man, you're the man." And he says, "No, Frank. I just represent the Man."

[laughter]

LD: I like that.

CD: That's great, man. Those guys are so humble.

PM: Yeah, amazingly for how much he's done.

CD: Yeah, they do all that, and then it's all for something else. I love that.

GN: Did you all do any gigs with Robert Randolph when you did the record last year?

LD: Yeah. There were really two separate tours. We did Northeast and West Coast. We're supposed to do the South and never got to.

CD: I got their new record and it just blew my mind. And then the second one that came out was live. And I bought it on the road and gave it to Chris because I knew he liked listening to gospel music. I just bought it and turned it over to Chris. And the next day he came and said, "You gotta hear track seven! Come here, come here!"

PM: [laughs]

LD: And he put it on, and it was Robert's live track, "Without God." So then, before the show, every night for weeks, we'd listen to that and jump up and down and get excited. Then we got a mutual friend to ask him to open up for us. It was his first theater date, and there it was. [see our interview with Robert in this issue]

CD: We were already going to do The Word. We had the session booked, but that's who came to the show. We were all blown away by Robert, and asked him to come join us at the studio, and that was it. Now he's on VH-frickin'-One!

PM: VH-1. Can you believe it?

GN: Hadn't he kind of barely been out of playing in church when he started?

LD: Yeah. At the Bowery Ballroom that first night was his first theater night.

[laughter]

PM: Okay. I think we're going to let you guys go. You got an in-store, you got a sound check.

LD: Well, I sure enjoyed it.

PM: Me too, Luther and Cody.

CD: Thanks for the conversation, man.

PM: What really nice guys you are, jeez. On top of being great musicians.

CD: Awesome, bro.

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