Fat Possum recording artist R.L. Burnside died yesterday morning in his hospital bed in Memphis, according to his label.
R.L Burnside was born in Oxford, Mississippi in 1926 and lived most of his life in the hill country above the Delta. He learned to play guitar from a neighbor, and by a great stroke of luck that neighbor was the great Delta Blues musician Mississippi Fred MacDowell. From MacDowell, Burnside inherited that driving, rhythmic, almost rudimentary one-chord style that distinguishes much of the blues from that region.
However, like most people who play the guitar, Burnside kept his day job. He worked as a farmer and a fisherman, occasionally playing local juke joints or recording a side. It was only in the 1980s that his star began to rise as he played a few European festivals. Subsequently signed to the good people at Fat Possum, Burnside spent the rest of his life releasing a series of outstanding albums that updated his ramshackle Delta style with modern production touches.
In 1996, Burnside recorded an album with indie-rock huckster Jon Spencer titled A Ass Pocket Full of Whiskey which effectively married Burnside's blues sound to the Blues Explosion's chaos and noise. This album catapulted him from relative obscurity to (at least) cult status, and with his third album for the Fat Possum label, 1998's Come On In, his career really hit its stride.
Produced by a fleet of young white hipsters including a member of Atari Teenage Riot, Come On In meshed the Delta blues with electronic and dub sounds with surprising results. Burnside's signature heavy-footed style, reminiscent of other Delta players like Lightnin' Hopkins and John Lee Hooker, works surprisingly well alongside looped drums, snippets of distorted clavinet, and bass-heavy dub production. Although critics differ on the merits of this album, it is one of my all time favorites in any genre. (This is, I admit, partially because my wife is also a huge fan of this record.)
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
damn, what a bummer; thanks John, super job
2 - Gustavo Nelson
It is with deep regret that we mourn the loss of our mentor and warm friend, RL Burnside.
PBFL
Panther Burns Forever Lasting
3 - Joanie
Thanks, John.
4 - Roy W.
Hi, I just watched a documentary about Fat Possum Records and the beginning of it on the Independent Film Channel. Anyone who enjoys the mississippi delta genre, or Blues in general,has to stand up and take their hats off to you for starting up and doing what your doing to keep this style cranking out. Any one who likes the blues has got to stop and smell the roses of by-gone days and throw on a Robert Johnson or R.L. Burnside or any one of the artists from that era that has grown up and lived the music that they play. It had to come from a greater calling that you do what you do so that people may still have a chance to enjoy the music and musicians from an otherwise lost time in this country's past. Thank You, and keep up the service that you perform. Roy W.