Agreed, never seen that one before, but its one of my favorites now too!!!!!!!
The groove Burnside gets into is Hypnotic.
Tryharp
PS have you ever seen Collard Greens and Gravy an Aussie band you might like, I think they get a fair bit of influence off RL Burnside with a driving groove.
I once played a blues festival where Burnside was the headliner--upstate New York, in the Catskills--and Sterling and I basically just sat around on amps for an hour, next to him, waiting for things to get rolling. Mellow guy, by that point. Man of few words.
RL's predecessor as the great North Mississippi guitar player was Bonnie Raitt's mentor, Fred McDowell. Here's a video of him:
I have a terrific album: McDowell and Woods as a duo. Very much like the OP's video. Woods was basically the first-call N. Mississippi harp guy.
And "traditionalists" please take notice: these Mississippi guitar-men are playing electric guitars, not acoustic guitars. They're modern. But they're also playing with their fingers and/or with thumbpicks: the traditional style. They're modernizing tradition, not letting it stagnate. My kind of guys..
Last Edited by on Jul 04, 2009 8:36 PM
I have that McDowell/Woods album too, I got it after you recommanded it in another topic (thanks a lot for that !). Great recording, very hypnotic ; that style of blues reminds me of the traditional musics existing in most cultures (notably in Africa) and purposed to put people in a transe during sacred ceremonies.
"these Mississippi guitar-men are playing electric guitars, not acoustic guitars."
They played both, actually. The album with Johnny Woods is acoustic, early recordings of Burnside and McDowell are acoustic too. McDowell's playing on electric is not much different than his acoustic. Burnside played electric in a very different way, almost rock style (at least on the albums that I know). Probably because he recorded those albums in the 90's, with Jon Spencer and the Blues Explosion.
About the vid I posted : check the other YT vids from the same session, they're great too.
Last Edited by on Jul 05, 2009 6:46 AM
