R.L. Burnside

Brought up in a dirt-poor region of Lafayette County in the deep south, Robert Lee Burnside began playing guitar at the age of 16, influenced by local church music and the fife and drum picnics which are a major part of the regional music culture. Burnside uprooted and moved to Chicago, following his father who moved there as an economic migrant. His short time in the city was marred by tragedy - in the space of three years his father, two brothers and two uncles were all murdered, prompting Burnside to return south. In the 1950s Burnside was convicted of murder and imprisoned but released within six months after his boss had reasoned with the authorities that he needed the prisoner to drive his tractor. The singer subsequently led a quiet existence for the next 40 years living in remote rural areas surviving as a sharecropper augmenting his income by driving trucks and commercial fishing. He became famous in the last two decades of his life and began recording for Fat Possum Records, a label dedicated to recording the music of ageing bluesmen. Burnside began touring and promoting his music when he was in his sixties and in 2000, aged 74, won the first of four W.C. Handy Awards and also received a Grammy nomination. His style, reminiscent of John Lee Hooker, was considered more hill country blues than traditional delta. After his death in 2005 he left a recording legacy of 12 studio albums.

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