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R.L. Burnside

R.L. Burnside

The Holly Springs bluesman whose raw hill country drone turned a farmer into an unlikely alt-rock icon.

APPLE MUSIC

Been Mistreated

R.L. Burnside

About

MOODS · raw · hypnotic · droning · gritty · electrified · rootsy · soulful · rugged · late-career triumph · hill country groove

BIOGRAPHY

R.L. Burnside (1926-2005) was born near Oxford, Mississippi, and spent most of his life in Holly Springs, working the land while shaping a raw, hypnotic style rooted in North Mississippi hill country blues. Drawing on Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins, and John Lee Hooker, he played fingerstyle guitar in open-G tuning, his voice breaking into falsetto at the ends of long notes. Discovered by folklorist George Mitchell in 1967 and released on Arhoolie, Burnside toured sporadically before Fat Possum Records' unconventional marketing and 1994's Too Bad Jim brought him to a new, younger audience decades into his life.

WHY THEY'RE COOL

Burnside's late-blooming career is one of blues history's great turns: a Mississippi farmer whose droning, electrified hill country sound caught the ear of post-punk musician Jon Spencer, leading to a genre-crossing collaboration, A Pocket of Whiskey, and tours with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Alternative rock audiences embraced him alongside traditional blues fans in the 1990s, and his influence echoes forward: The Black Keys interpolated his song "Skinny Woman" into their track "Busted" and later covered him on Delta Kream. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2014, cementing a legacy built on decades of unheralded, uncompromising sound.

ON WOKE-1

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