All Blues

Burnside circa 1968 (Photo By George Mitchell)

Now 73 years old, R.L. Burnside doesn't know what "retirement" means. At an age when most folks would be content to settle into their easy chairs, the former sharecropper instead became the Nineties' signature bluesman. His gut-piercing albums, including 1995's Too Bad Jim, 1997's Mr. Wizard, and the just-released Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down, are vivid reminders that the blues' primordial stomp still beats in 4/4 time. The new album's trip-hoppy "Got Messed Up" points to a more experimental side, best explored on 1996's brilliantly lewd collaboration with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, A Ass Pocket of Whiskey on Matador Records. The Chronicle found him "restin'" at his home outside Holly Springs, Mississippi, before a two-night stand at New York's Village Underground and an appearance on Late Night With Conan O'Brien. Burnside is relaxed and cordial, but it sounds like phone interviews are about as exciting for him as a trip to the doctor's office. "It won't take but about 20 minutes, will it?" he wonders. Not even.

Austin Chronicle: How's the weather out there?

RL Burnside: Well, it's been good, but it's gettin' wintertime here yesterday and today. It was 32 this morning. Freezing. But it's been so hot here, man, it ain't never been this hot down this late in the year. Been near 100 degrees at night.

AC: Would you call Ass Pocket blues or something else?

RLB: There's blues in it, but it's something else. The reason we did that, Jon Spencer heard one of my CDs, and he called the record company and asked could we open for him. The record company asked me, "Do you wanna open for Jon Spencer?" I said, "Yeah." We went out to open for him and we'd be sittin' back in the dressing room, drinkin' and talkin', I'd be telling them old dirty stories. Jon liked that. "R.L., we oughta make an album out of that." I said, "No, man, I can't do that, not out in public, ain't no way I can do that."

But we opened for him three times, and he asked me to do it and I never did do it, so just we'd be telling them old stories. When I came home, I'd been home about four or five days, six, seven, maybe, and he called and asked me. He told me when he left, "R.L., if you ever decide to do the album, just call me."

Me and some of my friends were sitting out in the yard drinking beer and he called. "Yeah, R.L., are you ready to do the album?" I said, "Yeah, man, come on down, we'll do it. If it don't help me, it can't hurt me none." So in about two days he was down, rented one of those huntin' clubs out from Holly Springs, and we did the album in four hours.

AC: Four hours.

RLB: Yeah.

AC: Y'all didn't waste any time.

RLB: I'd been tellin' 'em stories, we already knew what we were going to do. And it outsold the rest of my albums. So that's why I don't mind doin' 'em now, you know?

AC: Had you listened to Jon Spencer's music before?

RLB: No, I had never listened to him. I'd heard of it, but I didn't listen to it, you know.

AC: What do you think of that kind of music?

RLB: Well, it's ... [laughs]. They seem to put more blues in their music now, since I recorded with 'em, than they was.

AC: How do you think blues stacks up against hip-hop and rap music?

RLB: Well, I just like the blues better. People just now beginning to realize that the blues is the roots of all the music. It started all the music, that's where all the music started from, the blues. Course it took the people a long time to realize that, and they're comin' back to it now.

AC: Do people stand up or sit down at your shows?

RLB: Yeah.

AC: They do both?

RLB: They stand up and have fun, man.

AC: Do they dance?

RLB: Oh yeah.

AC: Who's the meanest woman you ever met?

RLB: [Laughs] I don't know. I met a few of 'em.

AC: What did you think of the election?

RLB: Well, I didn't care too much for it, but they ain't decided yet. I'm just wondering what they waiting on. Why they don't decide, one 'tother of 'em.

AC: What would you do if you were president?

RLB: Oh, I'd just give up if it gets like this here. Wouldn't wanna vote. I'd just quit.

AC: Have you ever been ripped off by someone in the music business?

RLB: Well, not as I know about, but they tell me -- I've knowed a bunch of people that get ripped off.

AC: But not you personally.

RLB: Not as I know personally.

AC: Do you still like to go out on the road?

RLB: Yeah, I just don't like to stay out there long. I like to go out and do four or five shows and come back.

AC: Is that pretty easy for you to do?

RLB: Yeah, that's pretty easy for me to do. I used to go out and stay two or three weeks, you know, and I don't do that no more.

AC: Seems like you may be one of the last bluesmen that still lives in Mississippi. Why is that?

RLB: The biggest blues people done passed, what lived down in Mississippi.

AC: What about the rest of them?

RLB: The young people coming back to the blues now. The young people in Mississippi are beginning to realize the blues is the roots of all the music, they're trying to keep it going now.

AC: That must make you feel better.

RLB: Oh yeah.

AC: Are there a lot of young musicians there that come to you for advice?

RLB: Yeah.

R.L. 30 years later (Photo By Bradley Beesley)

AC: What kinds of things do you tell them?

RLB: I tell them to try to keep the blues going.

AC: How would they do that?

RLB: Everybody that plays blues trying to go back to it now. Ain't many bands, but it's three or four young bands around here that play the blues now.

AC: What would you do if you were 20 years old right now?

RLB: Well, I'd play the blues. I grew up listening to the blues. That's the first music I heard. I just liked it from where I started.

AC: Who's your best friend?

RLB: Well, I like John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, Fred MacDowell, I like all those guys.

AC: Did you know them?

RLB: Yeah, I met Lightnin' Hopkins once, and Muddy Waters was married to a first cousin of mine, and I grew up around Fred MacDowell.

AC: You've got some deep roots there.

RLB: Yeah.

AC: Tell me about your new album.

RLB: When I was about 10 to 13 years old, I sang in the church, me and my sister. The record company heard about me singing in church. They asked me if they could put that on a record. I said, "Yeah, it's all right."

AC: It seems like every year you have a new album.

RLB: Fifteen or 20 years ago I never thought I'd have been doing this. Now I realize I'm gettin' known. Took a long time, but I got known.

AC: What were you doing 15, 20 years ago?

RLB: I was working on a plantation. I grew up on a farm.

AC: What kind of farm?

RLB: Cotton, corn, beans, things like that.

AC: Where's your favorite place to sit down?

RLB: At home.

AC: Anyplace in particular, like a TV room?

RLB: Yeah, that's what I'm doing now, layin' here watching the TV.

AC: What do you like to watch on television?

RLB: I like to watch them old Westerns and them old detective stories.

AC: When's the last time you got into a fight?

RLB: Well, it's been a long time. Times ain't like they used to be now. That's why I don't like to live in the city now. People fightin' too much up there.

AC: But you slowed down.

RLB: Yeah, out in the country. I live out about 10 or 15 miles out of Holly Springs. It's quiet out here, but there's something always going on in town, man.

AC: Are you married?

RLB: Yeah, me and my wife been together 50 years.

AC: How many kids do you have?

RLB: Thirteen. We have 12 living now. One of our daughters got killed in a car wreck. We have 12 living kids now, eight boys and four girls.

AC: They all live close by?

RLB: Well, no, some of 'em live in Iowa, Davenport, some live in Arkansas, some of 'em live in Memphis. Got two or three of 'em that live pretty close by me.

AC: What is there to do on Saturday night in Holly Springs?

RLB: Well, they mess around there, and drink and carry on, because there ain't much music going on up there now. Ain't but one club open, and she don't have live bands, they have a deejay in there. Junior's, they had somewhere to go then. Now this black guy that runs the store up here, Thomas Earl Davis, he's puttin' him up a big joint. He's been at it about three weeks now, and they started to go down there. He got a big nice place.

AC: Do you play much around there?

RLB: Yeah, I played down there a couple of times. That's about the only place to go now.

AC: That's where Junior Kimbrough's club used to be, right?

RLB: That's about 15 miles below that.

AC: Whatever happened to that place?

RLB: It burnt down. We don't know what happened. They called it a kitchen fire, some other people said it was set afire, and you don't ever know, but it burnt up everything. All the guitars and amps, and a car a fella left there wasn't runnin'. He left it there one night, burnt it up.

AC: If you met the devil face to face, what would you say to him?

RLB: I ain't servin' the devil. If it wasn't the Lord's will, I couldn't be playing the blues. He gives me the strength to do that. You can't do nothin' without the Lord.