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R.L. Burnside: A Micro-Appreciation
Artists and creators may not find success until they’re old
Are you an aging artist with no success? Everyone says they love your work but no one is listening/reading/watching?
Take encouragement from this big twentieth-century sharecropper from the Mississippi Delta, an era/area more crammed with talented blues musicians than the Internet is crammed with hack writers. He farmed, drove truck, shot craps, and played blues at picnics and house parties. He got a few recording contracts, but nothing came from them.
But at age 65, he signed with Fat Possum Records. The label took his music and spun it to the new generation, making him a cross-over hit with punk and garage rock fans. He even played on The Conan O’Brien Show.
I’ve been listening to him a lot.
Now, make no doubt about it: Burnside’s music, like all blues, has a hard rhythm, which is the only musical element that is more appreciated by the left hemisphere. I tend to believe classical music quietly nourishes the right hemisphere and ought to be relished.
But sometimes, you just gotta say “Fiddlestick it” and let the rhythm and blues crank out loud. If you find yourself in one of those moods, I strongly recommend “Someday Baby.” When I first heard it earlier this summer, I was like, “Is this song as incredible and weird as it seems?”
After 597 more listenings, I’ve concluded it is.
Also recommended: “Let My Baby Ride.”
(You can find them on The Daily Eudemon’s “Contemporary” playlist on Spotify)
