It’s taken 30 years for James Luther Dickinson, the producer, raconteur, and notorious Memphis sideman, to record a follow-up to his 1972 debut, Dixie Fried. In the interim he has, among other things, produced seminal works by the Replacements and Big Star (Pleased To Meet Me and Sister Lovers, respectively) and played with Dylan, Ry Cooder, the Stones, and the North Mississippi All Stars, a band fronted by his sons Luther and Cody.

His long-awaited sophomore effort, which features both sons, picks up where Dixie Fried left off, with a swampy, stripped-down mixture of blues, boogie, and back-porch country. Free Beer represents a gritty flip side to the bluegrassy roots revival occasioned by the success of the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? Garrulous and rollicking, alternately amiable and profane, it brings to mind both the genial Dr. John and dirty bluesmen like T-Model Ford. Dickinson has an evocative voice that gives a gravelly, Tom Waits–style authority to the eight-minute-plus "Ballad of Billy and Oscar." And if all this only whets your whistle, consider that Sepia Tone has just reissued Dixie Fried, which had been out of print since shortly after its release.