James Dickson (January 17, 1931 - April 19, 2011) was born in Los Angeles, California, son of a diesel engineer in the United States Navy. He was an avid sailor as a teenager, and enlisted in the United States Army in 1946 before he embarked on a career in the recording industry as a self-taught record producer and band manager. Before producing the first Elektra Records Bluegrass records he produced his first record, an LP on his own label, Vaya. He eventually sold the rights of Lord Buckley's 1955 album Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger Poppin' Daddies, Knock Me Your Lobes to Elektra and it was in print for another 25 years. Jim Dickson was the lone individual behind Elektra Records Los Angeles Bluegrass albums. In 1962 he produced his first bluegrass record for Elektra called Dian and the Greenbriar Boys by the Greenbriar Boys and a Hollywood country singer, Dian James. While working on the collaboration between Greenbriar Boys and Dian James, Dickson discovered the Dillards and with the help of Ralph Rinzler convinced Elektra Records that they were a good Bluegrass group. He went on to produce three of their records, 1963's Back Porch Bluegrass, 1964's Live!!!! Almost!!! and 1965's Pickin' and Fiddlin' which featured fiddler, Byron Berline. Rosenberg notes that Pickin' and Fiddlin' "was unlike any previous bluegrass album; it was an LP of old-time fiddle music played to bluegrass backing." Dickson was behind was the first ever recording of a Bob Dylan song by a bluegrass band, The Dillards recording of Bob Dylan's "Walkin' Down the Line" on their 1964 album Live!!!! Almost!!!