North Mississippi Allstars Share ‘Never Want To Be Kissed’ Single Featuring William Bell

North Mississippi Allstars released a new single, “Never Want To Be Kissed,” featuring soul singer-songwriter William Bell of Stax Records fame. The song is set to appear on NMA’s upcoming album, Set Sail, due out via New West Records on January 28.

NMA announced Set Sail in November and shared the lead single “Set Sail Part 1” — featuring vocalist Lamar Williams Jr. — and followed with “Didn’t We Have A Time” featuring bassist Jesse Williams. While North Mississippi Allstars co-founders Luther Dickinson and Cody Dickinson co-produced most of Set Sail together, the brothers teamed with Stax legend William Bell to co-produce “Never Want To Be Kissed,” which Bell also contributed heavily to as a writer, as Luther attested to in a press release:

He had the whole plot of the song conceptualized, as if it was a movie. I’ve never seen a song written like that before. Usually, for me, story lines unfold as they are written. We simply helped William turn the plot into lyrics and added music but we were truly only helping William realize his vision. We recorded a voice memo at the session and built the song up from there. Some of the audio on the record is from the original voice memo. It’s an honor to work with a living legend and soul music pioneer.

“Luther and Cody are my kind of people, locked in the tradition of Blues and Soul stories and songs,” Bell added. “Pure perfectionists at their craft!”

“Never Want To Be Kissed” arrived with a Cartter Fontaine-directed music video premiered by PopMatters. Watch it below: