Music: Poor Black Mattie - R.L. Burnside
(Wikipedia:) R. L. Burnside (born Robert Lee Burnside, Harmontown, Lafayette County, Mississippi, Nov. 21 or Nov. 23, 1926; d. Memphis, Tennessee, Sept. 1, 2005) was a blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He spent most of his life in the rural hill country of northern Mississippi, working as a sharecropper and a commercial fisherman, as well as playing guitar at weekend house parties. He was first inspired to pick up the guitar in his early twenties, after hearing the 1948 John Lee Hooker single "Boogie Chillen." He learned music largely from Mississippi Fred McDowell, who lived nearby in an adjoining county. He also cited his cousin-in-law, Muddy Waters, as an influence. During the 1950s Burnside grew tired of sharecropping and moved to Chicago, Illinois in the hopes of finding better economic opportunities. But things did not turn out as he had hoped. Within the span of one month his father, brother, and uncle were all murdered in the city, a tragedy that Burnside would later draw upon in his work, particularly in his interpretation of Skip James's "Hard Time Killing Floor" and the talking blues "R.L.'s Story," the opening and closing tracks on Burnside's 2000 album Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down. Around 1959 he left Chicago and went back to Mississippi to work the farms and raise a family. Burnside claimed to have been convicted for murder and sentenced to six months' incarceration for the crime. Burnside's boss at the time reputedly pulled strings to keep the murder sentence short, due to having need of Burnside's skills as a tractor driver. "I didn't mean to kill nobody," Burnside later said. "I just meant to shoot the sonofabitch in the head. Him dying was between him and the Lord." Continue Reading...
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Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down [EXTRA TRACKS]
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Music: Death Letter - Son House
Some footage of seminal Delta bluesman Son House layin' it down. Here's his story from wikipedia:
Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. (March 21, 1902 – October 19, 1988) was an American blues singer and guitarist. The middle of seventeen brothers, House was born in Riverton, two miles from Clarksdale, Mississippi. Around age seven or eight, he was brought by his mother to Tallulah, Louisiana after his parents separated. The young Son House was determined to become a Baptist preacher, and at age 15 began his preaching career. Despite the church's firm stand against blues music and the sinful world which revolved around it, House became attracted to it and taught himself guitar in his mid-20s, after moving back to the Clarksdale area, inspired by the work of Willie Wilson. He began playing alongside Charley Patton, Willie Brown, Robert Johnson, Fiddlin' Joe Martin, and Leroy Williams, around Robinsonville, Mississippi and north to Memphis, Tennessee until 1942. After killing a man, allegedly in self-defense, he spent time at Parchman Farm in 1928 and 1929. The official story on the killing is that sometime around 1927 or 28, he was playing in a juke joint when a man went on a shooting spree. Son was wounded in the leg, and shot the man dead. He received a 15-year sentence at Parchman Farm prison. Continue Reading...
Check this out:
The Original Delta Blues - Son House (CD)
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Music/Travelin': The Howlin’ Wolf Story - By Ron Brown
Nice little piece on Howlin' Wolf and Richard Ramsey's Howlin' Wolf Blues Society of West Point, Mississippi. Help keep the American Delta history alive for future generations.
Here's the contact info. And if ya can, make a donation:
The Howlin' Wolf Blues Society of West Point, MS. Inc.
P.O. Box 1334
West Point, MS. 39773
Fax: (662) 495-2007
tel: (662) 494-2921
email: rramsey@wpms.net
Also check out the city of West Point, Mississippi's website for more info: http://www.wpnet.org/About_HWblues.htm
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Music/Eatin'/Travelin': Road Trip: Blues & BBQ
Last year my brother and I lit out from Austin to follow the Black Keys to New Orleans and then on up Highway 61 to Memphis. Just a couple of knuckleheads in a pick-up truck trying to capture a picture that had been in both of our minds for as long as either could remember. A southern-borne, bourbon fueled meandering through the deep south. Belly's full of brisket after a quick stop outside of Austin, we were on the road. Some Willie on the radio and some Levi Garrett in the cheek. Bliss I tell ya. Big, open sky, rolling Texas hills, the clack of the highway slabs and the warm sun through the windshield. We hadn't seen each other in a while, with him livin' outside Austin and me settled down in Florida. And these kinda trips never seem to match what was in your head pushin' you to do it in the first place. After some small talk, we both sat silently leaving the weight of our respective existences behind like each curving mile. After about an hour or so, I look over and my brother's smilin' like when we were kids. A big toothy grin, with a little chew stuck in his teeth. 'Whiskey river take my mind....' 'it don't get any better-n-this' he says. The Old Milwaukee tagline that became a half-funny, half-serious battle cry when we were growin' up. Usually right before someone did something really stupid...To be continued.
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