One of the main characters on bluesman Cedric Burnside’s latest album, “Hill Country Love,” isn’t a person, it’s a place — an old building in little Ripley, Mississippi, a decidedly unglamorous spot for the Grammy-winning artist to record.
“That building, I was looking for it to be my juke joint, and unfortunately it didn’t happen that way,” said Burnside, referring to the old-school, no-frills establishments that offered food, drink and music in the South. “But I realized the building had great acoustics. It’s awesome in there, man.”
He mentioned the building to longtime friend and collaborator Luther Dickinson. “Luther suggested, hey man, do you want to record it in that building?”
Burnside didn’t end up with his juke joint, but he did end up with 14 tracks — one is called “Juke Joint” — in a two-day session helmed by Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars, himself from a distinct lineage as the son of lauded producer Jim Dickinson.
Burnside, who came up as a drummer with his grandfather, continues to focus on singing, guitar and songwriting. He came prepared with all of the album’s songs written besides the closer, “Po Black Mattie,” which he wrote in the building. “So everything just came together, man. There was a big energy. Everyone was eating snacks and making music.”
The album is a tribute of sorts to the Hill Country blues, a distinct subgenre of the blues known for its percussive style. It was also the first album Burnside made since he won the 2022 Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album for 2021’s “I Be Trying.”
“Hill Country Blues has been around for a while and didn’t get the recognition until like the late ’90s. But to bring a Grammy home for the first time ever to the Hill Country of Mississippi was just a beautiful thing, a heartwarming thing, and me think of my grandad and Junior [Burnside’s father] and all the cats and how proud they would all be and how excited they would be for me winning this Grammy. It’s such an honor and such a beautiful thing for the Hill Country.”
He said the Grammy “definitely changed my life. My shows are bigger. It put me on a different level.” With a combination of Grammy recognition and his bloodline, he has been dubbed an ambassador for his genre.
“I know they call it that. A lot of people say I’m the ambassador of the Hill Country Blues,” said Burnside. “People who like my music have me come play for them. Here in the states or in Europe, Australia, Japan. I don’t really care where I go, I just love to play my music for people. If they want to call me the ambassador of the Hill Country, I’ll take it, but that’s not really why I play my music.”
Burnside, who recently toured with JJ Grey & Mofro and has shared stages with groups like the Southern jam rockers Widespread Panic, was asked about crossing into a mainstream, more white audience.
“I think no matter what kind of genre of music you play, I think you can always sometimes get that special moment or that special album that will cross over,” he said. “Blues on the other hand, my big daddy RL used to say the blues is the roots of all music, not really comprehending the fullness of what he meant till I got older.
“You can hear rappers rap about what they’ve been through in life. It’s the blues. You can hear rock musicians sing about what they go through in life. It’s the blues. I do feel l like it’s not a specific race that has the blues. I think that all people have blues. You can have the blues today. You can drive down the road and get a flat tire. You can sit there for four or five hours, and it don’t matter what color you are, you got the blues.
“However, I do believe that the blues come from black people. Black people had the blues from slavery. Just from doing that and being part of such a thing, as slaves they had the blues first. But these days in time, it doesn’t matter what color you are.”
Cedric Burnside will perform at the XPoNential Music Festival at Wiggins Waterfront Park in Camden, NJ, at 6:20 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 20. Click here for tickets and festival info.
Photo by Jim Arbogast
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