Listen: Luther Dickinson and David Katznelson Interpolate Americana as Gravel Springs on ‘Crow’s Nest Meditations’

After five long years of sonic experimentation, personal development and deep listening, Gravel Springs shared Crow’s Nest Meditations at the end of October. The debut record from the duo of Luther Dickinson (the iconic singer-songwriter and guitarist of North Mississippi Allstars) and David Katznelson (the Grammy-nominated producer and founder of Birdman Records) is at once a departure from their previous works and a natural outcropping of long-held passions. Together, the longtime friends and collaborators distilled a rich and inspiring reflection of their lives and the changing soundscape of the world around them, amounting to one of the finest ambient projects of the year.

Since first connecting through Luther’s father Jim Dickinson, the legendary producer for the likes of Big Star, Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan, The Replacements and more, Katznelson and Dickinson have been close collaborators; in 1998, Katznelson released Otha Turner’s Everybody Hollerin’ Goat, Dickinson’s first album as producer, then later produced the artist’s debut solo album Hambone’s Meditations in 2012. In the years since, the new bandmates reconnected every December for recording and planning at Katznelson’s home in San Anselmo, Calif.

When Dickinson found himself in the Bay Area more regularly to perform alongside Phil Lesh in the Terrapin Station band, he spent more time working in Katznelson’s orbit. From a mutual fascination with sound artists like William Basinski, Jóhann Jóhannsson and Phil Niblock, the duo posed a foundational question: How could Dickinson’s masterful blues-rock sound be transformed by the drones, held notes and textural depth of ambient music? From a rudimentary recording setup in a satellite meditation room off Katznelson’s home–the eponymous Crow’s Nest–the pair passionately pursued this concept for years, folding further questions of lineage, memory, nature and growth into a sprawling interpolation of the spirit of Americana.

“For the next four years, whenever Luther had that extra day, we went right to the Crow’s Nest and started creating,” Katznelson recalls in a post to his Substack. “Each session birthed one or two experiments, with Luther getting more experienced in engineering the sessions […] Many of the sound environments we created were perfect opportunities for Luther to showcase his guitar playing prowess, but slowed down…more meditative….holding notes longer, allowing the space in the room to act as the second half of a duet […] Luther roped me into adding colored layers, playing my dad’s cello…single long bows of one note […] We sampled songs from the early 1900s from cylinders played through my Graphaphone, we played 78s from the early 1920s at 16 rpms […] There was a real record developing…a strange, dark, bluesy and othered kind of record. A unique work, an amulet of our friendship.

“For me, the most wonderful moment came when we sampled some of Jim Dickinson’s spoken word record, Fishing With Charlie, and incorporated it in the track with Luther playing guitar around his father’s words, the two convening in an artistic pursuit over a decade after Jim’s passing. That became the final song of the record, ‘Not Lucky To Dream.’ The way we see it, Jim produced the album in absentia.”

With time, Crow’s Nest Meditations became a seven-track 37-minute contemplative journey, and a rare window into the minds of the creative powerhouses behind it. The album is available on all streaming platforms and a limited vinyl pressing now. With this triumphant debut under their belts, Gravel Springs are already at work plotting their next collaboration. With any luck, it will be sooner that five years from now that we hear more from this pioneering duo.