Too Bad Jim
R.L. BURNSIDE
(Fat Possum)
If blues to you means Strat-wielding chops-meisters, you might want to expand your horizons a bit. The hill country of northern Mississippi produced a style all its own: Sometimes called drone-blues, it relies on one-chord riffs rather than 12-bar chord changes, and has a sinister, lacerating effect that depends more on rhythm than melody or improvisational prowess. There is no better place to begin investigating this hypnotic micro-genre than Burnside's Too Bad Jim. Recorded in a rural juke joint mostly with family members, the disc is crude, rude, lean and loud — and about as authentic and unbuffed as music gets.
This article appears in Feb 6-12, 2008.