Cached Sept. 2, 2005, from http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Studio/4500/rl.html
By Thomas Rogers, who was a Princeton
undergraduate in the mid-1990's
R.L. Burnside is one of the greatest blues artists of our time. R.L.
has been performing since the 1950s, although he didn't garner much
recognition until recording
for Fat Possum Records in the 1990's.
Along with his label mate Junior
Kimbrough, R.L. has produced some of the most unique and passionate
blues out there.
Personal note: when I first heard R.L.'s music, I was one of the blues DJs at WPRB Stereo 103.3-FM in Princeton, NJ. Compared to the contemporary blues that other, more mainstream labels were releasing, R.L. and the other Fat Possum artists were a revelation. Raw blues straight from hell, it seemed like. If you've never heard it, Robert Palmer's liner notes to Too Bad Jim offer a good explanation: "North Mississippi blues is a churning, jamming one-chord exercise in stamina and mass hypnosis." In short, it's the real deal. We played and praised R.L. and other Fat Possum artists on our blues shows for the next year and half, for what that's worth. I've been fortunate enough to see him perform live at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall twice. Consider this site my way of continuing to draw attention to one of the few true bluesmen of our time.  9/2/2005: I'm very sad to report the news that R.L. Burnside has died at the age of 78. He will be greatly missed.
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