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Blues Cruise
On the trail of America's first roots music to see if and how it survives
By Eric Snider
Page 5 of 6
In the early "90s, a robust Burnside performed in the terrific film Deep Blues, which followed musicologist Robert Palmer as he made his way through Mississippi looking for obscure artists. Burnside was such a dynamic proponent of the hypnotic hill-country style -- with his hellhound moan and slicing slide guitar -- that Matthew Johnson recruited him to be the flagship artist on the new Fat Possum label.
Johnson shook his head when asked about Burnside's current state of affairs. His Come on In (1998) album sold 100,000 units in the United States and about the same overseas, Johnson said -- paltry by major label standards but extraordinary for a low-budget country blues effort. His seven other CDs for the label, including one with New York faux bluesman Jon Spencer, did well, too. Burnside also placed songs on The Sopranos soundtrack and a Nissan commercial. And, according to Johnson, Burnside got paid plenty of back-end royalties, and for the subsequent Fat Possum tours, even for interviews. (Elmo Williams, who toured with Burnside, remembered him walking around with lots of cash in a backpack.)
But there sat Burnside on a Sunday afternoon, fiddling with an unopened box of MoonPies, his stained shirt covered with something that looked like sawdust. "I put a little money away," Burnside croaked, "but [medical bills] done ate that up."
That's hardly all that ate his money up, Johnson claims. While reluctant to get into Burnside's financial specifics, he explained that a retinue of relatives, acquaintances and hangers-on hounded his top artist, bleeding him for cash. Sometimes they took the money behind his back, but Burnside was also quick with a handout.
"Even if we'd cheated R.L., he'd still have a lot more," Johnson said ruefully.
And yet here's the funny thing: Although his fire has dimmed, Burnside did not look miserable. Even at the height of his success, he never chose to move into a fancy place in town. He stayed a country boy, moving from clapboard houses to trailers, a few of which burned down.
"He's had more fun than we'll ever have," Johnson said.
As our visit progressed, Burnside expanded beyond cryptic answers. "I learned behind [Mississippi] Fred McDowell," he explained. "I growed up doin' farm work, in the hill country. My granddaddy would go down to [McDowell's] house, get some whiskey, buy it by the gallon. Fred be playin'. I'd play some. It got to where he'd come by and get me every Saturday night. Ask my granddaddy if he could take me out with him, to play some for him. He'd get drunk on the way there, too drunk to play. And I'd have to play."
With that, R.L. broke into a big, cackling laugh.
He told us how his first cousin Anna Mae was Muddy Waters' longtime live-in girlfriend (the subject of the song "Anna Mae"). "I stayed in Chicago for about three years [in the '50s]. I'd go to Muddy's house two, three nights a week. He'd play at the Zanzibar, and I go up there and watch him, sometimes play a little. It was some good playin' to me. I picked up a lot from him. I liked Chicago, but I come back here and I got married and I ain't been back since."
I wanted to know if this man, who comes from a deeply embedded culture of exploitation, felt that Fat Possum had treated him unfairly. "They doin' a lot to help the blues musicians," Burnside said. If he felt he'd been shorted at all, "it wasn't enough to complain about."
Finally, I asked, had playing the blues made for a good life? He paused. "Hmm, yeah, but some hard times along widdit."
All through our odyssey, we'd kept an eye out for something that might hint at the future of the blues. We didn't find it in Mississippi, although we obviously left a lot of ground uncovered. There were the three young white kids jamming "How Many More Years" on a sidewalk in Clarksdale. Well-meaning though they were, this was not the future. We walked away from our visit with the trio realizing that young blues musicians absolutely must come up with fresh narratives that reflect their own experiences. Kids playing "Sweet Home Chicago," no matter how competently, only look backward.
There was the ragtag bundle of white longhairs crowding the stage for a Friday night benefit at the Walnut Street Blues Bar Bait Shop in Greenville. They are definitely not the future. On that same stage was Edie Brent, a 38-year-old keyboardist/singer who played the pretty white girl partnered with old black bluesman Boogaloo Ames until he died last year. She is not the future.
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