R.L. Burnside & The Sound Machine
Bad Luck City

Incredible how an artist of R.L. BURNSIDE's caliber achieved a minimal level of popularity (compared to his skills) almost by chance, nearly 50 years after he began spreading his guitar belief. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2005 at the age of 78, and he was the last great blues man of the Delta, also known as MR. Wizard.

His life was marked much like all the legendary figures of the Delta, with an aura of mystery mixed with violence and poverty. He started working in the fields at a young age. At the age of 15, his grandfather took him to notorious joints, where he had the chance to hear people like FRED MC DOWELL, leading R.L. to practice guitar more and more relentlessly while discovering the music of MUDDY WATERS and LIGHTING' HOPKINS.

At 19, he had his first baptism in front of an audience. BURNSIDE recounts: one time, in a venue, I asked if I could play during a break. My old lady said, ‘You'll make a fool of yourself in front of all these people!’ I was nervous because no one thought I was capable of playing. When I started, people jumped up in the other room where they were gambling and began to shout. ‘Who's playing the guitar?’ From that day on, I went there every Sunday. I took my wife by surprise. She didn't know I played like that.

In the 40s, he moved to Chicago to enrich his guitar repertoire by staying in close contact with his all-time idols, primarily JOHN LEE HOOKER, although this period would remain the worst of his life. In fact, his father, his uncle, and brother were murdered within a month. He decided to return to Mississippi and go back to working in the cotton fields, where he played at various festivals that enliven those magical lands only on weekends. Thanks to his talent, his name began to circulate, and in 1967 he managed to record one of his pieces on a compilation. It was in the 70s, touring with his band the Sound Machine composed of his sons "Joseph" and "Daniel" and his son-in-law "Calvin Jackson," that the name R.L. BURNSIDE echoed throughout the Delta, all this while playing only on weekends after weeks of hard fieldwork.

Probably, his fame would have stopped at the Delta's borders if it weren't for music critic "Robert Palmer" and director "Robert Mugge," who hired him for the documentary "Deep Blues" with Atlantic handling the soundtrack. It was the turning point he awaited. The newly founded Fat Possum label gave him the opportunity to record two albums "Bad luck city" and "Too bad jim," warmly welcomed by critics.

The album in question (as with all his works) is an anthem to electric blues. Indeed, R.L.'s sound is as pounding and hypnotic as the Delta blues has ever expressed, maintaining the rural qualities of the genre intact, with a unique personality. The lyrics, reflecting his harsh lifestyle, are no less remarkable, especially his R.L. story, which tells of his time in Chicago and the murder of his family.

With such an explosive sound, who else but Jon Spencer could notice him? The ex-Pussy Galore member found him so fascinating that he took him on tour, recording an album together in 1996 called "A ass pocket of whiskey." The album is pure nitroglycerin. I would call it delta blues punk. This record brought him much-deserved fame in the indie rock circuit, but it wasn't over. In '98, he released the album "Come on in," where R.L., at 70, hits us with a vitriolic rock with strong electronic influences, and which includes the song "It's bad you know" that became the theme song for the TV show The Sopranos.

Highly recommended are the first two albums already mentioned, but R.L. BURNSIDE was also great with the acoustic guitar, and the albums "Mississippi hill country blues" and "Acoustic stories" are excellent representations of this. On the live front, "Burnside on Burnside" is the album that earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album (2001).

Now, the name R.L. BURNSIDE is engraved alongside the legendary figures of the Mississippi.