Husky Burnette Talks On All That Is Hill Country Blues

Hill Country Blues is rock n' roll in its purest form

What is hill country blues? It’s a way of life for one. It’s a regional style of blues that comes from North Mississippi, particularly around the greater Holly Springs area. It gets down in your blood if you let it (and sometimes you don’t have a choice in the matter). It makes you wanna get up and get down. It’s a sound that moves you. Then, eventually, it forces you to physically move cause it gets you up out of your seat, throws you into a coma-like state and makes you MOVE. (Remember I said you have no choice in the matter?) This is a groove unlike any other. Not a groove like Funk, R&B, Jazz, Funk or any other kind of groove in music. This is trance music.

Hill country differs from all other styles of blues. It’s built from guitar-driven riffs, emphasizing the rhythm and percussion, very little use of the harmonica and the song structures themselves are more unconventional than any popularized blues songs on the radio, tv, etc. It’s different than Delta Blues for sure. Often, people mistake all styles of blues for being the same. For starters, this mistake happens simply because they all came out of Mississippi. Plus, Delta Blues took the limelight first. It’s far more popular than others, due to the old delta pickers taking their music to Chicago and becoming successful with worldwide recognition. Sometimes the styles even overlap. Take, for instance, T-Model Ford’s music. He hailed from the Delta but his sound and his playing was clearly Hill Country. From a musician’s point of view, the chords used, or lack thereof, are completely different from Delta and Chicago blues songs. It’s not your basic three chords (I-IV-V) you normally hear in popular blues progressions (Mustang Sally, Sweet Home Chicago, The Thrill Is Gone, etc). For the most part you’re just using that first chord (the I chord) of those three and, typically, never straying away from it. They hit that chord/key, lock into a groove, and ride it on out ‘til the wheels fall off. Obviously there are exceptions, as there are in any and every style of music. But, for the most part, it’s just trance music baby...all night long. And they didn’t wear no stinkin’ expensive suits either. They’re from the hill country. They wore wife-beaters, boots, trucker hats, overalls...they’re country-livin’ folks.

When you think hill country, two of the musicians that are mentioned the most, in modern times, are R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. In the 90’s their styles caught on with blues crowds and indie/alternative crowds alike. Especially when they appeared in the 1991 Deep Blues documentary and then signing with the Fat Possum record label out of Oxford, Mississippi. They actually began recording in the ‘60s, playing mostly at juke joints and house parties close to home. It wasn’t until the ‘70s that they actually started playing festivals and even Europe but, then in the ‘90s they gained much success, extensively touring in the states and overseas, inspiring many artists who would go on to emulate their hill country sound along the way. Burnside’s most popular trio consisted of himself, his grandson Cedric on drums and his buddy and “adopted son” the legendary Kenny Brown on slide/lead guitar. One of Kimbrough’s most notable lineups consisted of his son Kinney on drums and R.L.’s son Garry on bass guitar. Where Burnside’s music was more on the happy, dancing side of things (for a lack of better explanation), Kimbrough’s music portrayed a much darker side and approach to the style. Both Burnside and Kimbrough influenced tons of heavy-hitter artists who’ve recorded their tunes, such as The Black Keys, North Mississippi Allstars and more. They’ve had their songs in commercials, television shows, films, etc. But who influenced them? Burnside and Kimbrough both were heavily influenced by the music of John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. However, Burnside learned directly from guitarists Mississippi Fred McDowell and Ranie Burnette. McDowell’s sound is said to have helped define the hill country sound early on. His performances had that “drone” style, that’s prominent in hill country, heavy on African rhythms and the percussive side of things.

RL Burnside will always be my personal favorite Hill Country Blues artist

Even though Burnside and Kimbrough have passed, their families still play on in this tradition that was passed down, keeping this style of blues alive: Duwayne Burnside, Duwayne Burnside & The Mississippi Mafia, The Burnside Exploration, Cedric Burnside, Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm, Kent Burnside & The New Generation and David Kimbrough. Kenny Brown and other North Mississippi artists, such as North Mississippi Allstars and Hill Country Revue, have taken the style or their newer version of the style to international fame as well. If you’re not hip to hill country blues, hopefully this will help get you on your journey and be the starter kit to learning about North Mississippi music. Do yourself a favor and seek out some of these artists mentioned, new and old. The same ol’ blues is gonna be just that without expanding to check out other voices and other ways of the land and music in Mississippi.

For a more in-depth look at the blues in all of it’s forms, check out the book Deep Blues by Robert Palmer. A great read for lovers of southern music!

Stories woven into the songs on Greenwood, From Stevie Tombstone

Stevie Tombstone has started to deliver many of his road weary tales from his new tumblr page More Tombstone Tales. We will be re-posting them on this end as well so keep up with ol' Stevie and have a read on what has made him into the well regarded old soul that he is.

Legendary blues man Johnny Shine

"There are often little things that get overlooked or left out of the behind the music type postings and interviews. Trivial to some or too technical for those who are outside the craft. Often the inside jokes and surprises are the best because they are real.

Heres an example you may find interesting, shortly after the eventful trip to Greenwood Mississippi with Rick Richards and Johnny Shines  Before his death I had the pleasure of becoming friends with Johnny and his family to some degree. I played several other shows with him and Jeff Johnson  around Tennessee and Alabama. Johnny enthralled audiences with tales of his younger days traveling with Robert Johnson and claim to the last undocumented Johnson tune.I remember him bursting into my hotel room at 6 am one morning in brand new pinstripe suit guitar in hand exclaiming ” get up white boys and break out those fancy new guitars”. Hungover and bewildered we broke into Sweet Home Chicago out of a dead sleep! You can make up stuff like that and they don’t make characters of his caliber anymore .

Being young and outgoing I was often guilty of stepping on the songs with occasional overplaying and or “rushin” it as he would say. Johnny would send us off with is guitar two sheets in the wind out side to to the dressing room with instructions to tune it to various keys, mostly hard to decipher and usually we just scratched our heads. The key most requested was open A flat. This was not a common tuning and the answer was simple but too simple to see the woods for the trees. His goal was accomplished however by keeping us off the stage for a few songs.

Years later while working on the song Greenwood  realized the answer was very simple and only required a new point of view A flat = G sharp in music terms. He had had the last laugh long after his passing. All we needed was a capo and some humility. The characters in this tale are woven into the last verse of the song Greenwood and Its been recorded and arranged in Johnny’s favorite key of G sharp."

‘“Me and Richards we dont talk about it, Johnnys in the mansion in the sky”

Stevie Tombstone

Original Rare Photograph Of Robert Johnson And Johnny Shines

Life has an amazing way of working itself around into an infinite loop. The other day, I saw a post on Facebook from David Patillo of the Dead Exs, on a link to the article below about an original photo of Robert Johnson. Well, in that photo it just so happens that Robert Johnson is accompanied by none other than Johnny Shines. Ol' Johnny Shines ending up playing with Stevie Tombstone quite a few years back and offered up quite a few life lessons. This also set the ball rolling for Robet Johnson to have a proper headstone in Greenwood, Mississippi.

We think you should follow up on this tale and learn more on Robert Johnson and Johnny Shine. Check out the video below we did on Stevie Tombstone's new album, aptly entitled "Greenwood" and him talking about their headstone created for one of America's most treasured musicians.


Check out original post on the Guardian UK

Robert Johnson poses with fellow blues musician Johnny Shines in the newly released photograph. Photograph: Robert Johnson Estate/Getty Images

"Perhaps the most infamous music deal ever struck involved no contracts and no lawyers. The blues singer Robert Johnson, so the legend goes, acquired his unearthly musical talent after meeting the devil at a crossroads.

Until now, there were only two verified photographs of Johnson (1911-1938), who remains the most inspirational musician produced by the Mississippi Delta and the man Eric Clapton once anointed as "the most important blues musician who ever lived". This weekend a third, newly cleaned-up and authenticated image has been released by the Johnson estate showing him standing next to musician Johnny Shines.

Forensic work on the photograph began in 2007, when Lois Gibson, who works with the Houston police department, analysed the features of the long-fingered figure holding the guitar. Gibson, who found the identity of the sailor kissing the nurse in the Life magazine photo of Times Square on VJ day the second world war ended, has ruled that "it appears the individual is Robert Johnson. All the features are consistent, if not identical." The only differences, she added, were due to the angle of the camera or the lighting.

The new photograph came to light eight years ago, when a classical guitarist called Steven "Zeke" Schein was searching eBay for an old guitar. He spotted a thumbnail picture with a caption that read "Old Snapshot Blues Guitar BB King???" and bought it. On inspection neither man in the photograph looked like BB King, but Schein noticed the length of the man's fingers on the guitar and the way his left eye was narrower than his right.

One of the other two known photographs of Johnson is postage stamp size and is thought to have been taken in a booth in the 1930s. It was first published in Rolling Stone in 1986, the year that Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and shows him in a button-down shirt, staring directly at the lens. A cigarette hangs from his lips and his long fingers rest on a guitar neck.

The second image was taken at the Hooks Bros photographic studio in Memphis. In it, Johnson sits cross-legged on a stool with his guitar, wearing a pin-striped suit and a tie. This portrait was used on the cover of Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings, the two-CD boxed set issued by Columbia Records in 1990."

Did Robert Johnson Really Sell His Soul To The Devil At The Crossroad?

Legend has it that Robert Johnson sold his soul at the crossroads. Is this fact, could it be fiction or maybe its something entirely different altogether, could it be mistaken identity? What, we the public actually diggin' for the truth and not believing everything we are told? 

Radiolab has come up with quite the interesting podcast about ol' Robert Johnson and anyone that listens to the blues and the origins of rock n' roll will find this quite compelling.

Link to original podcast over at Radiolab

Did Robert Johnson really sell his soul to the devil at the cross roads?

"For years and years, Jad's been fascinated by the myth of what happened to Robert Johnson at the crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi. The story goes like this: back in the 1920s, Robert Johnson wanted to play the blues. But he really sucked. He sucked so much, that everyone who heard him told him to get lost. So he did. He disappeared for a little while, and when he came back, he was different. His music was startling--and musicians who'd laughed at him before now wanted to know how he did it. And according to the now-famous legend, Johnson had a simple answer: he went out to the crossroads just before midnight, and when the devil offered to tune his guitar in exchange for his soul, he took the deal.


Producer Pat Walters bravely escorts Jad to the scene of the supposed crime, in the middle of the night in the Mississippi Delta, to try to track down some shred of truth to all this. Not because they really thought something spooky would actually happen, but because deep down, there's a part of this story that--as much as the facts fall apart--still feels kind of true.


To help us get close to the real human behind the tall tales, we talk to Robert Johnson experts Tom Graves, Elijah Wald, David Evans, and Robert “Mack” McCormick. And we hear, posthumously, from Ledell Johnson...a man of no relation to Robert, who unintentionally helped the world fall for a blues-imbued ghost story."

Robert Johnson illustration by ComicNerd635 from Deviant Art

Cigar Box Guitars and Delta Blues

The more I got thinkin' on cigar box guitars and the link sent over by cigarboxradio.com I had to sit back, dig in and pull up some old gems. Knowing how much the blues has influenced punk, metal and the entire American musical landscape, we need to take a step back and truly appreciate where it all came from. From those broken or scrapped guitars, old cigar boxes and lengths of wire came a sound that would forever change our landscape and we can never forget them. Here are three greats to start with...