CEDRIC BURNSIDE AT ‘16 TONELADAS’ (EXCLUSIVE PHOTOGRAPHIC REPORT)

Cedric Burnside took a seat and started playing licks on his acoustic guitar before greeting the crowd. A man, his voice. A guitar and the blues. No guitar pick, no pedals, no effects and no frills. The first song quickly settled into a hypnotic rhythm starting into the verses of The World Can be So Cold.

“Sometimes life ain’t what you expect it to be. It can throw you, things you did not see. No matter how heartbreaking,. no matter what you bring. The world don’t, it don’t owe you a thing….”

The World Can be So Cold

During the chorus his guitar lines doubled his vocal melody while his thumb droned the root note of the key punctuated with bassline pull-offs on his low E string. Between his singing, he worked in some improved riffs. Burnside has a big voice. It is passionate while soft during the chorus. With this God-given talent, he channeled the pain of his ancestors.

“Make you wanna cuss and fuss. Make you wanna tear things all apart. You tryin’ to stay calm and not act a fool. Now somebody come and make you lose your cool.”

Hard to Stay Cool

Continuing with Hard to Stay Cool, it was an answer-song. Lyrically he lurches away from the relentless suffering of African-Americans towards empathy. This music is a singular, subversive resistance to bigoted oppression that weighs heavier than the Mississippi delta humidity for which it comes from. Like field songs and spirituals before, these blues offer hope through melody and words.

Burnside’s playing took on a distinctively sharper resonance as he played with a bottleneck slide during his version of Mississippi Fred McDowell’s classic spiritual You Gotta Move.

A popular song in its day that later found a new generation of fans when The Rolling Stones recorded for their 1971 Sticky Fingers release. And now a track from Burnside’s new release that just came out this past spring: Hill Country Love.

“You may be high, you may be low. You may be rich child, you may be poor. But when the Lord gets ready, you got to move.” Hope and redemption inches forward.

A half an hour into his show he changed things up, turning to electric guitar accompanied with bass guitar and drums finishing up the night lively and loud. Yet still raw and real. Burnside continued with new material with the new title track Hill Country Love.

Ever so heartfelt and humble, Burnside shared his thoughts with the crowd. “Gotta give thanks to the most-high for blessing us to come around the world and play our music for beautiful people like you. Thank you for loving music and hope you will enjoy this song.” Then played another new track Closer, a rocking beat that is an aspirational song of godly devotion.

The son of pioneer musician Calvin Jackson and grandson of R.L. Burnside, Cedric is a north Mississippi hill country living blues legacy. And the 2022 Grammy winner for best traditional blues (I Be Trying).

But importantly he is a modern day folk troubadour traveling both distance and time keeping this traditional style of blues alive. Hill Country blues is distinctly rooted in West African ‘Desert Blues’ music. A quick listen to Mali’s Tinariwen or Ali Farka Touré, one cannot miss the similarities.

This show was well worth catching. See him live. Burnside is touring Europe through August. His latest release Hill Country Love is out now.

Report by Phillip Solomonson