jmdkm.blog

Found out today.. R.L. Burnside is dead…

(for a while now, November 1, 2005, but news doesn’t seem to catch up on me fast or anything..) but I am truly very, very sad..

R.L. played the blues like no other (well maybe Junior Kimbrough along side next to him).. in very basic maybe naive way.. but he was cool doing so, he was about no bullshit!! his co-operations with the blues explosion are still very dear to me.. But most of all the life of R.L. himself is the life of a postmodern bluesman.

I understand he was playing in the sixties, I remember some obscure folk recording, but he didn’t got a proper audience untill the 90′ies. It’s so bad, you know?, that Junior died during a fire in his juke joint. Mississippi life is truly harsh.. People die in strange manors..

What is the attraction of R.L.? This old guy? playing dusty blues?.. Maybe it’s because he’s the total package of being the blues… Is it maybe because he adopted a white kid? Is it because he is mean? Is it because he his total musical appearance is so basically attractive?? Well I dunno but I for one am truly fascinated by the guy….

Other producers (like Eric Empire) took on his tracks, overdubbed and reproduced some delicate beats.. so nice to see these girls groovin’ on good ol’ R.L. ‘gonna put my foot in ya ass’ Burnside..