As the grandson of hill country blues legend R.L Burnside, Grammy nominated musician Cedric Burnside grew up surrounded by music and the history of the blues. He speaks to Elliott Childs about his music and life in Marshall County, Mississippi.
Cedric Burnside Photo: Abraham Rowe / Supplied
Cedric Burnside came to the guitar later in life, only starting to play 12 years ago, but he knows how to put his heart into his music. There is a rawness to his guitar playing that can only come from, as he puts it “experiencing that life”.
His latest album Benton County Relic is named after the Mississippi county he still lives in, not far from where he grew up.
Burnside embraces the historical blues he was raised with. Nominated for two Grammy awards in the traditional blues category, his music can be rhythmic and distorted but always keeps his blues influences at the fore.
“It’s a type of feel you get when you’re around that type of music. When I listen to the old school blues it takes me back to when I was a kid. Listen at the music when my big daddy (R.L Burnside) would play it for me.
“I kind of go back to those days when I’m writing my music and that’s where Relic came from”
- Cedric Burnside performs in Auckland: 7:30pm Friday 10 May at The Tuning Fork
Cedric Burnside is a living link to some serious blues history. His father was Calvin Jackson, an innovating drummer who was credited with bringing funk and R&B influences to the blues music of the Mississippi Hill Country. Cedric’s grandfather was R.L Burnside, perhaps the most well known hill country blues musician.
Amongst the many different types of blues, Mississippi hill country blues is unique in that it doesn't rely on structure, it’s almost freeform.
“It’s very unorthodox. A lot of people say it don’t make any sense. And they’re probably right.” says Cedric Burnside.
“What made hill country blues from Mississippi stand out was the unorthodox rhythm style. Those cats didn’t really go by the book. They just did what they wanted to do and that was it.”
Burnside’s grandfather R.L was born in Mississippi in 1926, only a few generations removed from slavery and at a time where being African American in Mississippi meant your life would likely be hard and dangerous.
A sharecropper for most of his life, R.L played music at house parties at the weekends and at local bars and juke joints. It was at these parties that young Cedric would first try his hand at playing the drums.
“Just watching the music all the times my whole little young childhood, I knew at a very young age that it was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
When I come to about seven or so I finally built up the courage, when they took a break to jump on the drums. And I jumped up there and I’m sure I sounded awful”
R.L Burnside’s music career took off in the 1990’s. He recorded with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and toured as an opening act for the Beastie Boys. In his later years, he had Cedric play drums with his band, filling his father’s old position.
Cedric had been playing in public for years by that point. From the age of 10 he was playing drums in the house band in a juke joint owned by blues musician and friend of his grandfather Junior Kimbrough.
“He took me and my uncle Gary over to his juke joint every other morning before he would open up that evening and he would show us the music. Just in case the bass player doesn't show up or the drummer doesn't show up and we would become the house band.
One cool thing is that your not supposed to be in a club or a juke joint in the first place at 10 years old.”
Despite being born 52 years apart, R.L and Cedric Burnside were born into surprisingly similar situations.
“I grew up very poor. I grew up with maybe 15 to 20 people in a 4 room shack with no running water, no bathtub, no toilet.”
At the time, because I was born into that type of lifestyle, I didn’t think about being poor because it was normal to me. Hauling water for the house, I thought that’s what we was supposed to do.”
It was not until the early 1990’s that Cedric and his family moved to a more modern house.
Though it might seem shocking that poverty like that existed in the USA back then, Burnside assured me it was an ongoing issue even today and that it had an effect on him.
“In parts of Mississippi there’s families right now today that live that way. With no running water. It’s not because they won’t do, that’s just the way it is. You know, times are still hard for some families in Mississippi.
That’s one reason why I wrote that song 'We Made It'. Because I want people to know that I can relate to how they live their lives.”
