Fat Possum Day 1 - RL Burnside

Following in the footsteps of No Name, I'm gonna try to do a week of posts about Fat Possum Records. Based out of Oxford, Mississippi, they've done a lot to bring blues into the conciousness of the underground rock scene. Initially, they mainly released albums by older, grizzled, blues men from Mississippi such as RL Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. As the label has gained in notoriety, they have expanded their roster to include roots rock, garage, punk, and indie rock, (including the new Dinosaur Jr album??). We're gonna start things off with the first artist on Fat Possum I ever heard, which is RL Burnside.


RL first recorded in 1967, and kept busy making music pretty much until he got too sick to play. I fell in love with his music becuase of its propulsive rhythms, and his voice. It's because of him that I dug deeper and really sought out the older country/folk blues musicians like Skip James and Son House etc. He recruited his sons and eventually grandsons into his band, and spent most of his days in the Northern Mississippi area in total obscurity and poverty. After Fat Possum began releasing his albums, blues based rockers such as The Blues Explosion became fans and collaborated on an album and tour. This chain of events is what catapulted RL into relative fame. His albums of the late '90s and early '00s got a fair amount of mainstream press recognition, and he even had his music remixed (which is the only stuff of his I'm not personally a huge fan of). Why dont we just allow the music to speak for itself:

Going Down South
Don't Care How Long You're Gone
Old Black Mattie
Peaches
Poor Boy
Snake Drive (live)

Go buy the albums folks, you'll be glad you did.