R. L. Burnside was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
He’s considered a musical legend who played electric and acoustic guitar. Though he played music for most of his life, he only got any commercial success and recognition from the early 1990s onward. His album “A Ass Pocket of Whiskey” was recorded with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The album got plenty of praise and was described by Billboard magazine as having “a sound like no other blues album ever released.”
Even so, Burnside is an awesome bluesman all on his own!
In this video, Burnside is featured playing for friends, at his home in Independence, Mississippi.
Burnside was a simple man whose talent carried his spirit along.
He can be seen in a simple floral shirt, surrounded by greenery. From the beginning, it’s clear that he’s getting the best out of his guitar. He establishes a hypnotic groove and rhythm right away, but the best part is the simplicity of the whole thing: one camera, one electric guitar, one microphone, and one man—showing us the best blues has to offer.
As this clip shows, when a musician knows what they’re doing, they can make anything sound great!
Burnside was a self-taught musician and this video shows that he plays by his own instinct and spontaneous inspiration.
His sound and his guitar skills are hard to replicate, and it truly feels like he’s letting his soul play the guitar for him. He makes long intervals when he plays and even creates space in between to speak. This video was recorded by Alan Lomax, an American ethnomusicologist, who did a great job of capturing preserving some of the best music videos of many artists.
Music fans definitely owe Lomax and his team an enormous debt of gratitude for this performance!
This glorious piece of blues history speaks for itself and it tells the story of a great musician who manages to makes his guitar sound like a whole band.
The funny thing about the video is that a baby can be heard crying in the background.
But the strange thing is that somehow the baby and the guitar sound in tune with one another! Regardless, there’s a lot of focus on Burnside’s hands and on his peculiar way of picking strings with two fingers. The clip proves that Burnside is a musician who learned everything on his own, which makes him so genuine and unique. His smile at the end of the video is his way of expressing just how at peace he is playing music. It’s clear that blues was the true love of his life!
Since the clip was loaded to YouTube, it has earned more than seven million views online.
The video was uploaded to Alan Lomax’s YouTube account, called Alan Lomax Archive.
Online audiences clearly liked this performance, and Lomax’s channel is full of other videos where he spotlights talented artists from all over America. It’s clear to see that Burnside was an underrated artist, but thanks to videos like this, his talent has been captured for posterity and the whole world can enjoy it. We are glad that there is a way to remember this legend in his home surroundings, happy and full of joy.
Be sure to watch the full video in the link below:
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