Cover photo © 2024 Marilyn Stringer

Northern Mississippi Hill Country Blues runs through the veins of Cedric Burnside. The 45 year-old drummer, guitarist, and songwriter was intimately formed by the sounds he heard growing up of renowned Hill Country blues artists like his grandfather R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Jessie Mae Hemphill.

With a musical family, Burnside began playing drums in jukebox joints, at just 10 years old, sometimes needing to hide, being underaged if the police showed up.

Burnside said that it instilled a love of the blues and the music in his blood and heart, but he was introduced to things like people drinking moonshine, smoking joints, and dirty dancing, that he should not have been exposed to at that age. With late shows, sometimes Burnside would make it home at 4:30 am, change clothes, and catch a 6:30 bus to school.

“I think I was born with it (the music). In my blood. I feel like I am Hill Country Blues because I grew up in this music. That’s all I knew my whole life,” Burnside said. “I knew I was destined to play this music. Even as a young kid, you know, I knew I was gonna play this music for the rest of my life.”

Hill Country Love, released in April 2024, marks Burnside’s third solo release and comes across as a love letter to the Mississippi Hill Country. In 2022, Burnside won the Grammy for Best Traditional Blues album with I Be Trying.

Earlier in his career, Cedric Burnside collaborated with R.L. Burnside, Lightnin’ Malcolm, Bernard Allison, and Trenton Ayers (as the Cedric Burnside Project) – putting out 8 albums between 2001-2018.

Burnside said he thinks Hill country Love stands out as his best album to date. Feedback has been positive, and he said some people have told him “they smell another grammy” and that they enjoy the entire, cohesive album– that there are no weak tracks.

“I express myself a little bit more than I normally do on the other albums. I think my word selection is different. My guitar playing is different. It’s just the structure of the songs is different. Which I love,” Burnside said. “This album is raw, but it’s expressive and explosive, all at the same time. And I think it got a little bit of all walks of life in this album.”

The raw nature of the album reflects the raw nature of the genre Burnside is keeping alive. It seems like a personal homage to the specific place and people he grew up around.

“Hill country blues is very raw. It’s very real. The rhythm of hill country blues is different from your normal blues. The rhythm can be quite unorthodox,” Burnside said. “This music makes me who I am today. I feel like I am Hill Country blues.”

Burnside never received formal musical education because when his family wasn’t making music, they were in the fields providing for the family. As such, when relatives got together to play music, Burnside watched attentively and learned by mimicking the way his family played. The first time Burnside got the chance to play snare drums was at periodic house parties, with his “Big Daddy” R.L.

R.L., a legend in his own right, was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2014. While R.L. was Cedric’s grandfather, they had more of a father-son bond, Burnside said, because he grew up with R.L., his “Big Daddy” until he was old enough to move out on his own. Burnside described R.L. as the backbone of the family that would loosen up a bit when they were out on the road. Simply put, Burnside said it was “beautiful” to be a part of a musical family and legacy.

“He (R.L. Burnside) just opened the door for not just the Burnside family but for so many people,” Burnside said. “And so many great musicians who love this style of music. Hill country blues.”

Burnside said he is dedicated to making his own mark in music, but that he feels confident his big daddy would be proud of the music he has produced, and that he has not simply stayed in his grandfather’s shadows.

Acknowledging the roots of blues music, Burnside said he hopes to channel it as a positive force. He said music was a way of escaping the conditions of poverty growing up.

“In a rural area and in a sharecropping environment at the time, this music was just a great way to forget everything, you know,” Burnside said. “Forget all the poverty that was around us and all the poverty that we was living in at the time.”

Burnside holds an optimistic view for the fate of blues in general, and his beloved Hill Country Blues especially. Several people in the younger generations are picking up the music, investing in it, and loving it, he said.

“The blues will never leave because every day, you know, people go through something. Anybody can have the blues these days, and it don’t matter if you poor and it don’t matter if you rich,” Burnside said. “You can still have the blues. Regardless of if they get the recognition or not, it’s going to always be here.”

From Burnside’s perspective, R&B and Rap are modern manifestations of the blues. R.L used to tell Burnside “the blues is the roots of all music.” Burnside said part of his goal in life is to be able to tell his story through the blues, before it’s too late.

Mississippi Fred McDowell, a major influence on Burnside, shot craps and drank moonshine with R.L. In tribute to the close friends, Burnside performs several McDowell covers on the latest record.

Burnside finds inspiration all around him – “every day the universe will throw you something to write about, whether that’s good or bad”, he said.

Oftentimes, Burnside sits on his porch, listening to birds chirp and the wind blow for inspiration. A creative state comes over him, and lyrics or music pour out of him. While not religious, Burnside considers himself spiritual, and the blues is very spiritual for him.

A competent drummer and guitar player, Burnside is seeking to master more instruments for a greater range of sound and more control over his sound. Learning guitar was an empowering process.

“I’m glad to be able to play my music and not sound it out to other guitar players. Because even when I sound it out, they do it their way, which is the way it is more comfortable to them. And so it still wasn’t what I really heard in my head,” Burnside said. “Even though we’ll get close it is not what I heard in my head when it comes down to writing my songs. So I’m happy to be able to play my own music. That’s that’s a beautiful thing for me.”

Burnside, who wants to learn to play every instrument before he dies, said he is playing around with piano and a harmonica in the key of G, mostly to see what sounds he can produce.

Another musical blues force from the Hill Country, the North Mississippi Allstars, composed of Luther and Cody Dickinson, are contemporaries of Burnside. Ever since he was 14, Burnside would play at Junior’s Juke Joint with the brothers, who also collaborated with R.L. Luther, a longtime musical partner, plays bass on Hill Country Love. This marks the second studio album the pair have worked on together.

“When we get into the studio, it’s just a very spiritual thing. I think when it comes down to slide Luther is the guy,” Burnside said. “His slide is just so amazing. I know some great slide guitars out there. But Luther is the one for me.”

In today’s world, the Blues struggles to compete in popularity with other genres.

“The hardest part about being a blues musician is you know, blues don’t really get the recognition that it deserves,” Burnside said. “Other genres out there make a whole lot more money due to you know, the younger generation loving that genre of music. And some young generations haven’t even heard of the blues, don’t even listen to the blues.”

Burnside constantly centers Mississippi, and the musicians that live there, as inspirational.

Ever since he was a child, Burnside said he was mesmerized, in a spiritual way with the natural wonders of Mississippi.

“Mississippi just inspires me so much. I really don’t have the words to explain how much it means to me. When I walk through the woods. I get inspired,” Burnside said. I’m sitting on the porch and I hear birds chirping, I get inspired. It’s just something really special about Mississippi to me, and nothing has made me want to leave Mississippi.”

Burnside had the opportunity to play with Jessie Mae Hemphill, one of the best blues musicians of all time, and a leading female guitar and drum player, another character from Northern Mississippi.

Hemphill was a kind soul, but fierce, and would not let anyone screw with her, or those she cared about, according to Burnside. She carried a 38 special in her purse.

“She would just be the sweetest lady, she will always say, I would give anybody the shirt off my back. But you know, I’m not to be effed with neither,” Burnside said. “So she’ll show that 38 special, and let me know that she got it in her purse and she got my back and she got her back all at the same time. So that was Miss Jessie.”

Winning the blues Grammy for Best Traditional Blues Album in 2022, signified not only a personal achievement, but a recognition of the Hill Country Blues in general– a point of pride for Burnside’s friends and family, particularly musicians in Northern Mississippi.

“It made me feel really good to bring a Grammy home to this area, to the Hill Country. That’s never been done before. So that was really really beautiful,” Burnside said. “Bringing it home to celebrate (was) about all the cats that showed me the ropes and how proud they would be that I finally did it. And not just for myself but for everybody.”

Burnside said that he has been around the blues his whole life– from a baby, to a toddler, to a teenager, to a grown man. He said he believes blues is the roots of all music and that he understands the history of blues as a tool to deal with emotional pain for Black people.

While respecting this past, Burnside said he wants to think positively and not dwell on the past. He added he wants to create new hill country blues.

“I hear that raw sound in my mind, in my head, it’s in my body. That’s all I heard my whole life. People tell me that it sounds modern and old at the same time. I’m a younger generation and music moves with the time,” Burnside said. “But that old raw sound, that’s in me as well. It’s not that I’m trying to keep it alive for my Big Daddy, but it’s just who I am. Even if I wanted to stop it, I don’t think I could, it’s just what comes out of me. Because I am a part of that music.”