Alvin Youngblood Hart opens for the North Mississippi Allstars Feb. 17 at 8 p.m. at Acorn Theater, 107 Generations Drive in Three Oaks. Tickets are $20.

The Allstars include Luther and Cody Dickinson, whose father was Memphis music legend

Jim Dickinson. Last year, the two recorded “Keys to the Kingdom )Songs of the South),” a song cycle recorded fast and raw exploring life in the face of death. The one cover on the release is Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.”

“In the end, we recorded our best country blues and Mississippi rock ‘n roll record yet — as if our lives depended on it,” Luther said.

The show opener, Youngblood Hart,  is a faithful torchbearer for the 1960s and ’70s guitar rock of his youth.

“The boy has got thunder in his hands,” bluesman Taj Mahal once said of Hart.