R.L. Burnside
Burnside on Burnside
Fat Possum Records
Popa Chubby
How’d a White Boy Get The Blues?
Blind Pig Records
R.L. Burnside and Popa Chubby couldn’t be more different. While Burnside is aged talent whose recent rebirth (with the help of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) is a welcome addition to the American music scene, Chubby’s derivative sound harkens back to the worst of bad-to-the-bone George Thorogood.
The blues has long suffered from an identity crisis as roots music in a world of glitzy pop and outrageous hip-hop. Where does its subtle and restrained sound fit in? Forever tied to bluegrass in the shared rural poverty of its performers, the blues has stayed a part of the national consciousness only through the work of musicians who laid claim to the blues without bogging themselves down by the actual music (a situation not unlike the jam bands who claim to play “bluegrass” because they have a banjo in the band). R.L. Burnside’s blues is a fusion. A guitar, a slide guitar and some rhythmic drums, Burnside has recently experimented with DJs and technotica. He hasn’t abandoned some of the music’s real traditions – regularly repeated lyrics and simple riffs – but he has modified their usage. On the spectacular Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down, Burnside’s emotive songs about the murder of family members in Chicago is haunting.
Burnside on Burnside captures R.L.’s other side. Playing in Portland, OR, with his grandson, drummer Cedric, and his adopted son, slide guitarist Kenny Brown, Burnside shines.
His muddled guitar with Brown’s slight slides and Cedric’s percussion makes for a brisk live performance. On “Shake ‘Em On Down,” “Skinny Woman,” and “Miss Maybelle,” Burnside’s spirited play is inspired. His guitar pops with his gravelly voice, and especially on “Maybelle” (from Heaven), R.L. sounds like he is having a good time when he begs “Miss Maybelle/ let me be your hopping frog.”
Not that he can’t slow things down; “Bad Luck and Trouble,” features Burnside solo singing, “If it wasn’t for bad luck/ I wouldn’t have no luck at all.” Knowing Burnside’s background, his clich
