RL Burnside Dead At 78

Mon 5th Sep, 2005 in International News

US blues legend RL Burnside – known mostly for his 1996 collaboration with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – has died in Memphis, Tennessee after a protracted illness, on September 1. Burnside suffered a heart attack and underwent bypass surgery last year, and it’s thought that he never fully recovered from the experience. He died in hospital of heart failure.

Born on November 21, 1926 in Harmontown, Mississippi, Burnside spent the bulk of his life in the hill country of north Mississippi, working as a sharecropper and commercial fisherman. For him, muisic was something that was played on the weekend, at house parties. He learned his style from artists such as Fred McDowell, and was first recorded by folklorist George Mitchell in 1968 – recordings which didn’t fully become available to fans until last year.

The bluesman toured Europe in the 1970s, recording there, but his career had seemingly stalled. After much obscurity, Burnside’s prominence increased in a major way with his signing to Fat Possum records, with 1993’s Bad Luck City signalling the beginning of a protracted media infatuation with the bluesman’s sparse style of playing. 1996’s collaboration with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, A Ass Pocket Full Of Whiskey, catapulted him into the hip lists, and saw him tour extensively.

Tracks from 1998’s Come On In was featured in several movies and TV shows, including The Sopranos.
 
Burnside is survived by his wife, Alice May, 12 children and many grandchildren.