Archive Review: R.L. Burnside’s Burnside On Burnside (2001)

Burnside On Burnside, recorded live at the Crystal Ballroom on, well, Burnside Street in Portland, Oregon, showcases a return to an earthier sound for Mississippi Hill Country bluesman R.L. Burnside. With a backing band that includes his twenty-two year old grandson Cedric and his longtime sidekick (and stepson), guitarist Kenny Brown, the 74-year old musician delivers a red-hot set of classic raw blues. 

Burnside’s bent-note style of guitar playing, inspired by mentor Mississippi Fred McDowell, is a classic example of traditional Mississippi Hill Country blues. When matched with Brown’s looping bottleneck slidework, and the younger Burnside’s steady rhythms, the guitar creates an almost hypnotic tapestry upon which the bluesman embroiders his powerful vocals. At home while on any stage, Burnside tells jokes, wanders across various musical pathways, and generally plays what he wants to play.

This is no slick Chicago-styled blues, or the work of some studio-bred Texas guitarslinger, nosirree - this is primal, no-frills, rockin-the-Casbah, honest-to-god jukejoint BLOOZE, delivered straight up, with no chaser. A gem among blues albums, Burnside On Burnside captures the music’s threatening ambiance and fiery essence like no other live album these ears have ever heard. (Fat Possum Records, released 2001)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine...

Also on That Devil Music: R.L. Burnside’s I Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down CD review

Archive Review: R.L. Burnside's Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down (2001)

That R.L. Burnside would only begin experiencing some degree of artistic and commercial recognition so late in his career is the story of the blues, kids. Many of the blues greats – Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell, Skip James and Son House, to name a few – were old and gray before being “rediscovered” during the 1960s. In his 73 years, Burnside has certainly seen his share of ups and downs. Since his own revival a few years back - fueled by an appearance in Robert Palmer’s Deep Blues documentary film – he’s been burning the candle at both ends. Burnside’s 1998 release Come On In, with Tom Rothrock’s contemporary electronica production laid upon the bluesman’s organic guitar and vocals, was a breakthrough of sorts, reaching an audience who knew little of the blues, much less anything of Burnside.

Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down is Burnside’s follow-up to Come On In and a return to a more roots-based sound. Lyrically, this is possibly Burnside’s bleakest album, with many songs haunted by death and betrayal, carrying with them an ambience as dark as the Delta soil. The album is also an artistic triumph – Burnside’s vocals are rich, soulful and expressive, his lyrics direct and carefully crafted. Even when covering somebody else’s material – such as his haunting rendering of Skip James’ “Hard Time Killing Floor” or an electric version of Don Covay’s R & B classic “Chain Of Fools” – Burnside’s talent and consistency make the songs his own. The title track is a traditional gospel tune that Burnside invokes with a great deal of fire and passion. Original songs such as the “Bad Luck City,” with its advice on romance, or “R.L.’s Story,” a spoken tract with minimal instrumental backing are as cutting edge as the blues will ever get.

For fans who only discovered Burnside through Come On In, there’s enough tape loops, turntable scratching and electronic tricks on Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down to satisfy your warped little tastes. A handful of producers, led by Andy Kaulkin, as well as contributions by guitarist Smokey Hormel and scratchers DJ Swamp, Iki Levy and DJ Pete B bring a modern feel to an art form that’s close to 100 years old. Burnside shines through all of the high-tech gimcrackery, though, with an originality and talent that places him alongside the greatest names in Mississippi blues.

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: R.L. Burnside’s Wish I was In Heaven Sitting Down

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ webzine, 2001

CD Review: Junior Kimbrough's You Better Run (2003)

Mississippi – this is where the blues began. Get off Interstate 40 from Nashville to Memphis just short of the Bluff City and go directly south. You'll hit Highway 6 West, which will take you across the North Mississippi Hill Country, where Fred McDowell, R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough lived and toiled and made music. When you hit Highway 61, sneak in behind the casinos in Tunica and make your way to the old highway. This is the road used by hundreds of African-American sharecroppers, many the sons and daughters of slaves, to make their way out of the frying pan of the Delta and into the fire of big cities like St. Louis, Chicago and Detroit in search of a better life. Go south on 61 'til you hit Clarksdale and stop at the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. You're in the heartland of the blues, baby, and if the faces of the people you've seen as you drove through this fabled land hasn't brought you an understanding of the blues, then nothing ever will...

Junior Kimbrough was one of the last of the authentic Hill Country bluesmen, as gifted an artist as the state ever shared with the world, and when he died in 1998 at the age of 67, a large piece of blues tradition went with him. Even though he didn't record his first album until 1992, Kimbrough's influence on contemporary blues and rock music is immense and unstated. "Discovered" by critic and blues aficionado Robert Palmer, Kimbrough was featured in Palmer's excellent book and film, Deep Blues. Palmer was responsible for getting Junior's unique sound on tape, producing the bluesman's first two albums for Fat Possum, the tracks recorded mostly at the juke joint that Kimbrough operated in Chulahoma, Mississippi.

You Better Run: The Essential Junior Kimbrough serves as a primer for the uninitiated listener. Collecting material from Kimbrough's first four albums along with odd live tracks and rarities, You Better Run offers an overview of Kimbrough's career and cements his place in the blues hierarchy. Kimbrough's music is deceptively simple, usually beginning with a repetitive riff upon which Junior embroiders his free-flowing lyrics. The Soul Blues Boys – bassist Gary Burnside (son of Junior's contemporary R.L. Burnside) and drummer Kenny Malone (one of Junior's many sons) – react to Kimbrough's improvisations without missing a beat, providing a hard-driving musical tapestry behind Junior's hypnotic performances. Several tracks here include guitarist Kenny Brown, the aggressive axeman adding a further dimension to the material by providing an instrumental counterpoint to Kimbrough's droning six-string.

There are songs on You Better Run that will be studied by blues scholars for generations to come. The tension-filled "All Night Long," the haunting "Sad Days Lonely Nights," and the rambling title track all showcase Kimbrough's skills as a performer, the singer evoking passion, lust, dread and elation with nothing but his voice and guitar (no special effects necessary). "Done Got Old" is the chilling lament of a man facing his own mortality, Kimbrough's voice a plaintive wail above the sparse instrumentation. "Old Black Mattie" is a traditionally styled juke-joint blues, starting hard and rising to a powerful crescendo while "Most Things Haven't Worked Out" is a lengthy and insightful observation on life. Most, if not all of the songs here were captured in one take – Palmer observed that Junior never was one to do a song over again – lending a raw, immediate feel to the material, just like you'd hear it at Junior's juke-joint.

As Rolling Stone editor Anthony DeCurtis states in his excellent liner notes to You Better Run, Kimbrough's blues were "a language that he made up," an entirely original distillation of one-hundred years of Mississippi music, rural culture and poverty. Kimbrough is often compared to his friend, contemporary and sometimes rival R.L. Burnside, but Junior's music has less to do with the Hill Country fife and drum tradition followed by Burnside and more to do with the ghosts of Mississippi bluesmen who came before. Although there are a few artists who evoke the Kimbrough style – Richard Johnston, who fronted the Soul Blues Boys after Junior's death, comes to mind – nobody will ever be able to replace Junior Kimbrough. If you have any interest in the genre at all, You Better Run: The Essential Junior Kimbrough is required listening in the Blues 101 course load.

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Junior Kimbrough's You Better Run

Originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 2003

Fat Possum Records celebrates 25th Anniversary

Launched in 1991 by blues fan Matthew Johnson, the Oxford, Mississippi-based Fat Possum Records quickly earned a name for itself by recording artists that had largely been overlooked by established blues imprints like Alligator and Blind Pig Records. Specializing in artists well-versed in the (then) obscure branch of the genre known as Mississippi Hill Country blues, Fat Possum gained respect and recognition with releases like Junior Kimbrough’s All Night Long and R.L. Burnside’s Bad Luck City, which were produced by respected musician and former New York Times music critic Robert Palmer.

It’s been a quarter-century since Johnson formed his ground-breaking label, and throughout the ensuing years Fat Possum has branched out, releasing acclaimed albums by bluesmen like Robert Belfour and T-Model Ford as well as rockers like the Black Keys and the Stooges. The underdog Southern label whose motto is “we’re trying our best” celebrates its Silver Anniversary in 2016 with an ambitious, year-long program that will feature the first-time-on-vinyl release of thirty phenomenal, ground-breaking blues recordings from the Fat Possum archives. Many of the titles will also be made available as digital downloads.

Among the fresh-to-vinyl reissues to be released by Fat Possum as part of its 25th anniversary celebration are Junior Kimbrough’s Meet Me In The City, which was originally released on CD a year after the bluesman’s death in 1998, and T-Model Ford’s outrageous LPs Pee Wee Get My Gun (1997) and Bad Man (2002), the latter produced by Memphis music legend Jim Dickinson. Other classic titles receiving the deluxe ‘hot wax’ treatment include Asie Payton’s Just Do Me Right (2002), Robert Belfour’s What’s Wrong With You (2000), and R.L. Burnside’s Unplugged, an anticipated collection of performances recorded in Europe in 1982, years before Fat Possum’s most beloved bluesman signed with the label.

Additionally, the Fat Possum-affiliated Big Legal Mess Records will be releasing ten album reissues on its own on vinyl and digitally, vintage bluesmen recorded by producer and music historian George Mitchell in the field between 1963 and 1982. Many of these albums have been unavailable since their original release, and among the titles are great records like R.L. Burnside’s Mississippi Hill Country Blues (1981) and Furry Lewis’s Good Morning Judge (1960s-era recordings from the Memphis bluesman). John Lee Hooker’s Alone, a solo live set recorded at Hunter College in New York in 1976 will be released as two single vinyl albums.

Fat Possum has long been known for the label’s inspired compilation discs, and collections like the label’s three volumes of Not The Same Old Blues Crap (from 1997, 2001, and 2004 and featuring Fat Possum artists and rockers like Hasil Adkins and Paul Westerberg’s Grandpaboy); 1998’s All Men Are Liars (with Bob Log III and the Neckbones); and its 2005 Junior Kimbrough tribute Sunday Nights (featuring the Black Keys, Iggy & the Stooges, and Mark Lanegan) will also be released on vinyl and digitally. We have the label’s release schedule for the rest of the year listed below, and you can join in the anniversary celebration at Fat Possum’s website.

Fat Possum Records 25th Anniversary Vinyl Releases:

April 8th: Furry Lewis - Good Morning Judge [LP/digital]
April 8th: Houston Stackhouse & Friends [LP/digital]
April 16th: Sunday Nights: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough [Record Store Day LP]
April 16th: Junior Kimbrough - I Gotta Try You Girl (Daft Punk edit) [Record Store Day LP]
May 6th: R.L. Burnside - Mississippi Hill Country Blues [LP]
May 20th: John Lee Hooker - Alone, Volume 1 [LP]
May 20th: John Lee Hooker - Alone, Volume 2 [LP]
May 27th: T-Model Ford - Pee Wee Get My Gun [LP]
May 27th: T-Model Ford - Bad Man [LP]
June 10th: Jim Bunkley & George Henry Bussey [LP/digital]
June 10th: Junior Kimbrough - Meet Me in the City [LP]
June 24th: R.L. Burnside - Unplugged [LP]
July 15th: Asie Payton - Just Do Me Right [LP]
July 15th: Robert Belfour - What's Wrong With You [LP]
July 22nd: All Men Are Liars compilation [LP/digital]
August 17th: Jimmy Lee Harris - I Wanna Ramble [LP/digital]
August 17th: Robert Cage - Can See What You're Doing [LP]
September 9th: Johnny Farmer - Wrong Doers Respect Me [LP]
October 7th: Dewey Corley & Walter Miller [LP/digital]
October 7th: Paul “Wine” Jones - Mule [LP]