Change is good. Just ask the North Mississippi Allstars. Brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson and long-time friend Chris Chew have spent their entire adult lives playing together. For them, change is good for the soul and the cortex. That's why Luther is working with the Black Crowes, and Cody and Chris have launched a new group, Hill Country Revue, whose first album, Make a Move, arrives from Razor & Tie on May 12th.

"The North Mississippi Allstars haven't broken up," Cody Dickinson says. "We're just off doing different things. Hill Country Revue, for Chris and me, is like a big jolt of adrenaline. It changes our blood chemistry and has us firing on a whole different set of synapses. Also the input from the other guys in the band, both as musicians and friends, is amazing. So everybody gains!"

Cody and Chris began shaking things up in February 2008 when they started trying out new material - much of it written by their friend Garry Burnside, the youngest son of legendary Mississippi bluesman R.L. Burnside - and working with Memphis-based slide guitarist Kirk Smithhart; vocalist and harp player Daniel Robert Coburn, formerly of Dixie Hustler; and drummer Edward Cleveland, nicknamed "Hot" for his performances around Memphis.

They think of themselves as "the modern blues band for the new generation," which might sound lofty, but they are rooted in the music of the region. "It's the music we grew up on, and our goal is to bring a fresh take to it. We play the blues of the Mississippi hill country as though it's been dosed with Viagra."

The Hill Country Revue"s music is, indeed, a ballsy mix of raw blues and classic Southern rock. The idea for the band comes from a show the North Mississippi Allstars did at the Bonnaroo Festival in 2004. Joining the band that day were brothers Duwayne and Garry Burnside, their father R.L. Burnside, Othar Turner's Rising Sun Fife & Drum Band, JoJo Herman from Widespread Panic and Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes. Also on stage was the Dickinson brothers' famous father, Jim, who has played with or produced artists ranging from the Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan to Big Star, the Replacements, Alvin Youngblood Hart, the Radiators and Mudhoney.

The open-ended, come-on-up Bonnaroo performance proved such a hit with the audience that it was released for the rest of the world in 2004 as a 14-track, 78-minute live CD, under the title Hill Country Revue, on the ATO label.

"That show was such a blast. The audience really turned on to the music from our part of Mississippi. Plus it was R.L.'s last public performance before he passed in 2005, so it was terrific that the crowd gave him a huge response," says Cody. "He was so sick at the time that I was shocked when he got on the bus to go, but he wanted to be with us."

R.L.'s son Garry, the youngest of 14 brothers and sisters, did yeoman work writing the new songs on Make a Move and is a guest guitarist, along with Duwayne Burnside, Luther Dickinson and vocalist Aaron Julison. "There's a simplicity to these blues-based songs," Cody says, "but when we perform them they turn into Southern rock with a raw, sexual energy."

The band and their friends recorded the 10-track, 45-minute Make a Move at Jim Dickinson's famed Zebra Ranch Studio, as well as at Young Avenue Sound in Memphis, with Cody in the producer's chair and father Jim acting as "director."

Before laying down the basic tracks in just two long sessions, they tested the material on the road, sometimes on their own and sometimes with the North Mississippi Allstars. "When we double up, the Hill Country Revue opens and plays for a proper hour; then the Allstars come on and Luther, Chris and I play as a three-piece for another hour; then the rest of the Revue joins us, so it's a full-on, double-drum, triple-guitar onslaught," Cody says.

As bandleader, Cody is also excited to be switching roles, moving from the drum-seat with the Allstars to playing guitar and singing with the Revue. "I'm a multi-instrumentalist, and just playing drums all the time had been holding me back. This was my opportunity to put my band together."

Cody sees Hill Country Revue as the North Mississippi Allstars' "rowdy, misbehaving brother, and I'm not saying that because I'm Luther's younger brother. I see the Revue as an extension of the Allstars. It's definitely not a side project. We've all put our hearts into this band."

As Allstars/Hill Country Revue bassist Chris Chew likes to say, "It's all good."