Dick 50 is Delbert McClinton’s touring band. Guitarist Rob McNelley handles most of the lead vocals and brings the same soulful feel he did to his two solo albums. His guitar is the basis for most of the tunes such as “Like You Did,” which starts with a great old-sounding soul riff and blends into a mix of rock and soul.

Its lyric compares lost love to new love, and the Leslie’d solo teams with McNelley’s soulful vocal to convey the feel. The guitar-through-Leslie sound is key to a number of tunes, including the groove of “Flyin’ Now.” You know
you’re dealing with guys who get it when the band locks in, plays in a way that proves they’re in no hurry to get
anywhere, and by the time McNelley’s solo pops up with its middle-eastern feel, the song matches its title.

While this disc is dominated by a soul feel, classic rockers will love the Stonesy crunch of “Goldilocks” and its blistering slide solo. The disc ends with the clever “Theme from Dick 50,” which, as you might expect, sounds like
a misplaced spy-movie theme from a different era. There are enough surf and mystery licks here to make any
veteran guitarist smile. This group of veterans knows how to make a record, and they play with intensity and feel many younger bands never capture. – JH




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6/7/2010


Dick50 is, among other things, the backing band for Delbert McClinton. Creative souls themselves, the band plays and writes their own material when they’re not supporting McClinton. Dick50’s Late Show is a charming album mixing elements of Rock, Funk and Soul in a blissed out, melancholy package. The band shows a distinctive ability to craft catchy melodies and arrangements while exploring sounds from garage to blues-inflected pop. Highlights include the funky “Flyin’ Now”, “Medicine Man”, the raw garage anthem “Dirty South” and the Black Crowes inspired “Goldilocks”. This is a band that’s fun to listen to at home, but likely a whole lot more fun in a roadside bar on a Saturday night where Lynyrd Skynyrd and .38 Special share billing on the jukebox with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Hank Williams, Jr. Late Show is entertaining.


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[Dick50 comprises four core members of the great Delbert McClinton’s band: bassist Steve Mackey, keyboardist Kevin McKendree, guitarist Rob McNelly, and drummer Lynn Williams. (They also happen to be among Nashville’s top session men, having worked with B.B. King, John Hiatt, and Dolly Parton, among others.)


If the members of Dick50 can’t quite match the singing and writing of their boss at his best – few can – they still expand on his rock-and-soul amalgam with their own authoritative touch. They bring deep grooves, a bluesy edge, and an occasional ’70s vibe (notice the clavinet on “Medicine Man”), while “2012″ shows they can downshift from
roadhouse rambunctiousness to affecting, midtempo balladeering. Oddly enough, “Theme From Dick50″ veers in a different direction: It’s a fun blast of vintage atmospherics that sounds like a collision of Dick Dale and Ennio Morricone.




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Critics have a predilection — for both good and ill, one supposes — for labeling, for pigeonholing. And it’s useful too, when you get right down to it. Though some bristle at the idea — some months ago a commenter took issue with a review of mine, complaining about critics’ insistence upon the “compare and contrast” formula, as if such an approach was a bad thing — some degree of labeling can help the reader form some basic ideas about the music under consideration. Will I like this? Well, if the reviewer (in whose opinion I place some level of trust) says they sound like a cross between the Bay City Rollers and Metal Machine Music era Lou Reed, well, that’s a useful touchstone.

That said, it’s admittedly delightful when a CD crosses this reviewer’s desk, and attempts to label it are confounded. So it is with Dick50. This four-piece act out of Nashville is comprised of four seasoned session players, and perhaps the versatility required to be a Nashville cat explains why the group is so difficult to pigeonhole. Dick50 has just released their debut album Lateshow, and the disc’s eleven tunes show their taste and versatility.

Perhaps — if the term weren’t such a loaded one, fraught with baggage this reviewer often finds less than compelling — the music of Dick50 could be labeled Americana. Within their grooves are the influences of country, soul, r&b, greasy roadhouse rock and roll, and more. But Dick50 blends it all into an appetizing stew.

Onstage, Dick50 is equally hard to pin down. A song might kick off with Rob McNelly cutting a Memphis-styled lick a la Los Bravos‘ “Black is Black” (Lateshow’s opening track “Like You Did”), but when the band comes crashing in with their forceful and highly melodic arrangement, the dual lead vocals and clavinet-centered groove takes the song other places. And a heavily Leslie’d guitar solo is so brief as to leave the listener all but begging for more.

On “Flyin’ Now” Dick50 rocks every bit as hard as, say, the Black Crowes, but with more shade and light in their arrangement. Frequent changeups in a song’s meter are a hallmark of the Dick50 sound, but that variety isn’t of the look-ma-I’ve-got-chops gratuitous variety.

There’s a classicist vibe to Dick50’s music: warmly familiar guitar tones, well-traveled keyboard sounds (Wurlitzer, Rhodes, Hammond, Clavinet, etc.) and a rhythm section that’s both nimble and rock-solid. You’re equally likely to hear Hawaiian slack-key styled guitar licks, reggae beats and British Invasion styled song structures, and they’re all seamlessly integrated.

Fans of pretty much any mainstream American musical form will find plenty to like on Lateshow. The vocal harmonies sometimes evoke a Memphis version of Hall and Oates, and the lyrical content serves up that storytelling that c&w fans so dig. (Check out Lateshow’s “2012? for amusing and memorable proof of the latter: “Once we get to Armageddon, then we’ll get to the heavy pettin’.”) Dick50 don’t sound like Booker T & the MGs, but their level of taste is certainly in the ballpark of that revered group.

The group’s live show displays the breadth of Dick50’s prowess. Currently on tour with Delbert McClinton, Dick50 takes the hard-gigging approach of opening with their own set, then returning to back McClinton for his headlining show. The quartet is possessed of chops so impressive that they can deliver their original songs with personality, then turn around and provide high-energy, sympathetic backing to Delbert McClinton. This is a band to watch.

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The songs from Late Show carry the styles of McClinton’s Texas R&B/country in “Like You Did,” Tom Petty type pop rock with “So We Shine,” NRBQ-sounding N’awlins groove on “Medicine Man,” Jimmy Cliff reggae/soul with “Make It Right” and Stones hard rocking on “Goldilocks.” The swampy blues of “Down” would fit Tony Joe White while “Theme From Dick50” is reminiscent of early Johnny Cash (“Ghost Riders In The Sky” comes to mind) with Carl Perkins rock ‘n roll backing. All the songs, however, have their own original touches that prevent them from sounding like intentional knock-offs. Instead they sound like fresh new versions of classic styles and that is exactly what they are. Amazingly each song was written and recorded in a single session. “Eleven songs; eleven days,” as Mackey puts it. The musical cohesiveness and mutual instincts required by such a feat is reflected clearly in this exciting offering.