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hill country blues
hill country blues

hill country blues

Kenny Brown and Duwayne Burnside Live at the Beale Street Music Festival, 2012

Hill Country bluesman Kenny Brown grew up near Mississippi Joe Callicutt in Desoto County, and was eventually mentored by the late R.L. Burnside. He has been tireless in his effort to preserve the Hill Country Blues tradition, not only through his performances and recordings but through he and his wife’s organization of the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic which is held in Marshall County, Mississippi each June. Here Kenny and Duwayne Burnside perform at the Southern Comfort Blues Shack at the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, 5/6/12. You can purchase Kenny Brown’s most recent album “Can’t Stay Long” here: http://devildownrecords.com/

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North Mississippi All-Stars, Beale Street Music Festival, 5/4/12

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North Mississippi All-Stars, Beale Street Music Festival, 5/4/12

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Opening the Beale Street Music Fest 2012 with the North Mississippi Allstars

Luther and Cody Dickinson are sons of legendary Memphis producer Jim Dickinson, and they are the driving force behind the North Mississippi All-Stars. The rich Hill Country Blues legacy of Junior Kimbrough and R. L. Burnside and the fife-and-drum band music of Otha Turner all have contributed heavily to the All-Stars sound, and while the band is very much a Mississippi entity, it is also a Memphis one, and there is no more appropriate act to open the Beale Street Music Festival. 

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North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic 2012 at Betty Davis Bar-B-Que, Waterford, MS 6/29-30/12

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Kenny Brown’s childhood in Nesbit, Mississippi took a radically different turn when an elderly man moved next door to the family’s house, for the man was Mississippi Joe Callicutt, a somewhat-forgotten blues legend. His influence set Brown on a blues journey that led to his “adoption” by hill country blues legend R. L. Burnside and his organizing of the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic in Marshall County. All of the varied facets of this remarkable man’s music are in evidence on Brown’s new Devil Down Records release “Can’t Stay Long”, a double compact disc consisting of two albums, “Money Maker”, featuring the live 2010 Hill Country Picnic set of Brown with his band, and “Porch Songs”, the more intimate and introspective solo guitar set that indeed sounds as if it could have been recorded on Brown’s porch.

Brown’s band in 2010 included Luther Dickinson and Duwayne Burnside, and is a romping, electrified performance of hill country blues, which manages to be rock-and-roll in the best sense of the term. The set includes standards such as “Shake Your Money Maker”, Joe Callicutt songs like “Laughin to Keep From Cryin”, R. L. Burnside anthems like “Jumper on the Line” and Brown’s own hits like “Back to Mississippi” which was originally on his debut album. A couple of final tunes “Let’s Work Together” and “If Walls Could Talk” spring from a later R & B tradition.

“Porch Songs” is far more somber, with themes of religion and death prominent. “Jesus on the Mainline”, “Prodigal Son” and “Denomination Blues” all deal with gospel themes, and indirectly so does the tragic “Wreck on the Highway”, originally a gospel polemic against the evils of alcohol. “Shake Em” makes a frequent appearance on Kenny Brown’s live gig lists, and “Skinny Woman” exists here in an acoustic version, and is the only song to appear on both discs.

Altogether, “Can’t Stay Long” exhibits the artist as a man in transition from old blues to new blues, from the old audiences of Burnside’s generation to the young college kids from Oxford cheering for him as he plays with his band. A consummate portrait of a bluesman who is a rightful heir of the hill country blues tradition.

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The North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic is an annual two-day outdoor concert at which most if not all of the living hill country blues performers appear, as well as many younger artists from the hill country of Mississippi, many of whom play styles of music influenced heavily by the hill country tradition. But unfortunately, not everyone has the time or money to travel to Marshall County, Mississippi in June for the picnic, so it is fortunate that Devil Down Records has issued a North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic Volume 2 sampler, which amounts to an aural record of the 2010 picnic. There is gospel here by artists like Rev. John Wilkins and Duff Dorough. There is music on the thin line between alternative rock and country, such as “Little Hand, Big Gun” by Jimbo Mathus, or “Midnight in Mississippi” by Blue Mountain. There are aggressive, rock-influenced readings of hill country blues by artists such as Eric Deaton, Duwayne Burnside, Hill Country Revue and North Mississippi All Stars, and there are traditional blues performances by Alvin “Youngblood” Hart, T-Model Ford and Robert Belfour. Of course, no recording can perfectly capture the thrill of being present at such a history-making concert, but this sampler satisfies with consistently-good music throughout. A hidden final track is R. L. Burnside telling a joke from many years ago, like a reminder of his spiritual presence giving approval to the picnic, and this recording. 

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The North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic will be held June 24-25, 2011 at Foxfire ranch at Waterford, Mississippi. This is in Marshall County, between Holly Springs and Oxford, just off Highway 7. Many of the living legends of the Hill Country blues style will be performing, as well as the young generation of artists influenced by legends like Otha Turner, R. L. Burnside or Junior Kimbrough. 

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Lightning Malcolm joins Cedric Burnside on stage, and the crowd takes the dancefloor at the Hi-Tone.

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Cedric Burnside carries on the legacy of his grandfather, legendary hill country blues guitarist R. L. Burnside. But what is unique about Cedric is first of all his amazing talent as a singer, a guitarist, a songwriter and a drummer. Even more impressive is how effortlessly he adapts the trance-like hill country style into the grooves of modern funk and rock-and-roll. The Hi-Tone, with its walls lined with multi-colored lights and old Memphis posters and album-covers, provided the perfect juke-joint ambiance for Cedric’s electrified hill-country stomps. An unexpected reunion with Lightning Malcolm capped the night’s festivities, coaxing the crowd out of their seats and onto the dancefloor. 

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