R.L. Burnside - Rollin & Tumblin (The King of the Hill Country Blues) 2010

R.L. Burnside, along with Junior Kimbrough, became the public face of the so-called North Mississippi hill country style of modal blues in the 1980s with several solid albums on the Fat Possum label, and while he tried on different hats during his run (even tracking a fine album backed by indie rocker Jon Spencer and his band), the blues he made essentially stayed in the same pocket, honed from years of playing weekend house parties and juke joints. His droning style, the style that all of the North Mississippi players used, was equal parts John Lee Hooker and Fred McDowell, designed to keep the beat steady for dancing and allowing minimal but effective interplay between voice and guitar, and it was as old as those hills themselves, somehow sounding both ancient and oddly contemporary all at once. This set, drawn from intimate recordings done in 1975, 1989, and 1991, features Burnside playing mostly solo -- both acoustic and electric -- in living rooms, on porches, and in jukes, and it provides a nicely sequenced portrait of this intriguing musician working away from a studio setting, not that what he did in the studios differed one degree from what he did outside of them. Highlights include two takes of “Long Haired Doney,” three of the signature “Poor Black Mattie” (both acoustic and electric), an endearing and intimate version of “Goin’ Down South,” and a solid take on Hooker's “Boogie Chillen” that shows how large a role Hooker played in the creation of the hill country sound and style. AMG.

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R.L. Burnside - Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down 2000

Like jazz, the blues has its share of late bloomers -- artists who didn't start recording or didn't become well-known until they were well into their 50s or 60s. R.L. Burnside is very much a late bloomer; the Mississippi bluesman was born in 1926, but it wasn't until the 1990s that he started to enjoy the publicity he deserved. Recorded in 2000, Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down finds the veteran singer continuing to be fairly unpredictable at 73. Essentially, this CD falls into the Mississippi blues category -- Burnside maintains the earthy, down-home rawness that people expect from Mississippi country-blues. But Burnside certainly isn't without urban influences, and this CD illustrates his appreciation ofJohn Lee Hooker and early Muddy Waters as well as the Texas blues of Lightnin' Hopkins. Burnsidehas also been influenced by R&B; one of the few tracks that he didn't write or co-write is a cover ofAretha Franklin's 1960s smash "Chain of Fools." The producers (who include Andy Kaulkin, John Porter, and Brad Cook) try to make that track and others relevant to hip-hop by adding sampling and scratching -- and when they do, it sounds forced and unnatural. Some of the producing is simply too high-tech for an artist as raw as Burnside, but that doesn't make his vocals any less impressive. Despite its imperfections, Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down is a generally appealing document of Burnside at 73. AMG.

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