One commentator noted that Burnside, along with Big Jack Johnson, Paul "Wine" Jones, Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes and James "Super Chikan" Johnson, were "present-day exponents of an edgier, electrified version of the raw, uncut Delta blues sound."
Early life and career
Burnside was born in Harmontown, Mississippi, in Lafayette County. He spent most of his life in North Mississippi, working as a sharecropper and a commercial fisherman, as well as playing guitar at weekend house parties. He was first inspired to pick up the guitar in his early twenties, after hearing the 1948 John Lee Hooker single, "Boogie Chillen" (which inspired numerous other rural bluesmen, among them Buddy Guy, to start playing). He learned music largely from Mississippi Fred McDowell, who lived nearby in an adjoining county. He also cited his cousin-in-law, Muddy Waters, as an influence.
During the 1950s, Burnside grew tired of sharecropping and moved to Chicago in the hope of finding better economic opportunities. But things did not turn out as he had hoped. Within the span of one year his father, brother, and uncle were all murdered in the city, a tragedy that Burnside would later draw upon in his work, particularly in his interpretation of Skip James's "Hard Time Killing Floor" and the talking blues "R.L.'s Story", the opening and closing tracks on Burnside's 2000 album, Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down.
Around 1959, he left Chicago and went back to Mississippi to work the farms and raise a family. Burnside was convicted for murder and sentenced to six months' incarceration (in Parchman Prison) for the crime. Burnside's boss at the time reputedly pulled strings to keep the murder sentence short, due to having need of Burnside's skills as a tractor driver. Burnside later said "I didn't mean to kill nobody ... I just meant to shoot the sonofabitch in the head. Him dying was between him and the Lord."
His earliest recordings were made in the late 1960s by George Mitchell and released on Arhoolie Records. Another album of acoustic material was recorded that year and little else was released before Hill Country Blues, in the early 1980s. An album's worth of singles followed, released on ethnomusicology professor Dr. David Evans' Highwater Records record label in Memphis, Tennessee.
Later life and career
In the 1990s, he began recording for the Oxford, Mississippi, label Fat Possum Records. Founded by Living Blues magazine editor Peter Redvers-Lee and Matthew Johnson, the label was dedicated to recording ageing North Mississippi bluesmen such as Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. Burnside remained with Fat Possum from that time until his death, and he usually performed with his friend and understudy, the slide guitarist Kenny Brown, with whom he began playing in 1971 and claimed as his "adopted son."
Burnside attracted the attention of Jon Spencer, the leader of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, touring and recording with this group and gaining a new audience in the process.
After the death of Kimbrough and the burning of Kimbrough's juke joint in Chulahoma, Mississippi, Burnside quit recording studio material for Fat Possum, though he did continue to tour. After a heart attack in 2001, Burnside's doctor advised him to stop drinking; Burnside did, but he reported that change left him unable to play.
Members of his large extended family continue to play blues in the Holly Springs area: grandson Cedric Burnside tours with Kenny Brown and most recently with Steve 'Lightnin' Malcolm as part of the 'Juke Joint Duo', while his son Duwayne Burnside has played guitar with the North Mississippi Allstars (Polaris; Hill Country Revue with R. L. Burnside). Duwayne's solo career began when "Duwayne Burnside and the Mississippi Mafia" recorded "Live At the Mint" in October 1997. Members included Cedric Burnside, Eddie Batos, Joe Hill from Alien Ant Farm, and David Kimbrough, Jr. (Junior Kimbrough's son) with Duwayne's father sitting in on a few tracks. Duwayne and the Mississippi Mafia released "Under Pressure" in March 2005, which was recorded at Delta Studios in Clarksdale, Mississippi featuring Jimbo Mathus, rhythm guitar (Squirrel Nut Zippers), Roy Cunningham on drums (Stax Sessions), and Burnside's son Garry Burnside on bass guitar. In 2004, the Burnside sons opened Burnside Blues Cafe, located 30 miles southeast of Memphis at the intersection of U.S. Highway 78 and Mississippi Highway 7 in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
In January 2006, Garry and Cedric released The Record under the moniker "Burnside Exploration".
Death
Burnside had been in declining health since heart surgery in 1999. He died at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee on September 1, 2005 at the age of 78.[4] Services were held at Rust College in Holly Springs [which is also where services were held for his friend, Junior Kimbrough, who died in 1998], with burial in the Free Springs Cemetery in Harmontown. Around the time of his passing, he resided in Byhalia, Mississippi and his immediate survivors included:
His wife: Alice Mae Taylor Burnside (married 1951); died November 16, 2008
Daughters: Mildred Jean Burnside, Linda Jackson, Brenda Kay Brooks, and Pamela Denise Burnside;
Sons: Melvin Burnside, R.L. Burnside Jr., Calvin Burnside, Joseph Burnside, Daniel Burnside, Duwayne Burnside, Dexter Burnside, Garry Burnside, and Rodger Harmon
Sisters: Lucille Burnside, Verelan Burnside, and Mat Burnside
Brother: Jesse Monia
35 Grandchildren
32 Great-Grandchildren
Style
Burnside had a powerful, expressive voice and played both electric and acoustic guitars (both with a slide and without). His drone-based style was a characteristic of North Mississippi hill country blues rather than Mississippi Delta blues. Like other country blues musicians, he did not always adhere to 12- or 16-bar blues patterns, often adding extra beats according to his preference. He called this "Burnside style" and often commented that his backing musicians needed to be familiar with his style in order to be able to play along with him.
His earliest recordings, like those of John Lee Hooker, sound very similar in their vocal and instrumental style. Many of his songs do not have chord changes, but use the same chord or repeating bass line throughout, giving his music a hypnotic feel. His vocal style is characterized by a tendency to "break" into falsetto briefly (usually at the ends of long notes).
Like the bluesman T-Model Ford, Burnside utilized the stripped-down element of his music, playing up the rawness, emphasizing his image as a lifelong hard-drinking man, and singing songs of swagger and rebellion. Burnside collaborated in the late 1990s with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on the album A Ass Pocket of Whiskey. Consequently, he gained the attention of many within this underground music scene, cited as an influence by Hillstomp[9] and covered on record by The Immortal Lee County Killers. Burnside's "Skinny Woman" was also interpolated into the song "Busted" by fellow Fat Possum musicians The Black Keys, a band associated with the punk blues scene in their early years.
He also knew many toasts (African American narrative folk poems such as "Signifying monkey" and "Tojo Told Hitler") and frequently recited them between songs at his live concerts and on his recordings.
Selected albums
First Recordings (recorded in the late 1960s by George Mitchell; re-released by Fat Possum Records in 2003)
Too Bad Jim (produced in 1992 by Robert Palmer)
Well, Well, Well (songs and interviews from 1986-1993, released in 2001 on MC Records)
A Ass Pocket of Whiskey (1996, featuring the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion)
Mr. Wizard (1997)
Acoustic Stories (1997)
My Black Name A-Ringin' (1999)
Burnside on Burnside (a critically acclaimed 2001 live album recorded in the Crystal Ballroom on Portland, Oregon's Burnside Street)
Come On In, Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down, and A Bothered Mind (three albums of remixed material, often featuring guest artists, released in 1998, 2000 and 2004, respectively)
Films
Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads (1991). Directed by Robert Mugge
American Patchwork: Songs and Stories of America, part 3: "The Land Where the Blues Began" (1990). Written, directed, and produced by Alan Lomax; developed by the Association for Cultural Equity at Columbia University and Hunter College. North Carolina Public TV; A Dibb Direction production for Channel Four. This is a lightly re-edited version of "The Land Where the Blues Began" (1978) made by Alan Lomax, John Bishop, and Worth Long in Association with Mississippi Authority for Educational Television
You See Me Laughin': The Last of the Hill Country Bluesmen (2003; released by Fat Possum Records in 2005). Produced and directed by Mandy Stein. Oxford, Mississippi: Plain Jane Productions, Inc; Fat Possum Records.
In popular culture
The 2007 Samuel L. Jackson / Christina Ricci film, Black Snake Moan is infused with countless Burnside nods, including: the Reverend R. L. character and when Jackson plays the blues toward the end of the film, he thanks "Ced" and "Kenny" - Cedric Burnside (Burnside's grandson) and Kenny Brown (Burnside's "adopted son"), who were primary sidemen through the 1990s and early 2000s. Cedric and Kenny are also part of Jackson's band in the juke joint scene.
"It's Bad You Know," and "Shuck Dub" were featured in the HBO series The Sopranos.
"Got Messed Up" was featured in the FX series Rescue Me during an opening montage on Season 5 Episode 18, "Carrot".
A Burnside poster can be seen on a wall in brothers Drake and Josh's room in the Nickelodeon sitcom, Drake & Josh.
Just Like A Woman
R.L. Burnside Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Persuasively
Like she knew me
She knew where I lay to sleep
She was coming closer to me with simple words
But in her eyes I swear I could see the universe
With a cooling thirst she asked for my biggest curse
Asked me what I'd change in life, what's the biggest worst
But she was hypnotizing
So I told her what I've gone trough to seek enlightenment
She selected me
She used to say that
All the time like I'm destined to be all persuaded
Mentioned to me how she look for people just like me
With attention span, greater than the barrier reef
Plus some knowledge of the street and a lack of green
With mentality that's deserving some release
And a mind full of pictures that the world should see
Only king I would be, they would worship me
Fame and fortune on the line, don't need no more crime
World of sinners for a dime had me thinking for a while
But the reason for her smile was my misery
So I never trusted her over empathy
In this world ain't no shit for free
So tell me what you want from me, I don't got a lot to give
She said, no she don't want no belongings
But for the price of only one she would open up this ocean for me
She asked for the essence of life, The holy spirit inside
The one that opens up the paradise
She asked for the hold of my soul
For permission to decide when it's time for me to
For the pistol and my mind to be used when she wants to change a life
Change the course of time
Change the lights in the sky
There's no enter sign, check my enterprise
Drop a stain of your blood on her dress then you kiss her twice
Just resist to hide all distress in your sight
Cause she knows that you're blessed inside, I mean
I can't deny
A legendary life
But tell me is it worth the price
I can cure the things you feel inside you babe
You just have to stay
Don't you overthink at night a text to me
Usually I'm awake
Girl it ain't no thing if we do start too late
Time is there to waste
Now you gotta take it in and don't exhale
Helps you fly away
I can cure the things you feel inside you babe
You just have to stay
Don't you overthink at night a text to me
Usually I'm awake
Girl it ain't no thing if we do start too late
Time is there to waste
Now you gotta take it in and don't exhale
Helps you fly away
The lyrics of R.L. Burnside's song "Just Like A Woman" depict a conversation between the singer and a woman who seems to be offering him solutions to the issues he's facing. She speaks persuasively and with confidence, as if she knows him well. He finds himself being drawn to her, despite his reservations, and tells her about his struggles with seeking enlightenment. She then asks him for permission to have the hold of his soul and for the essence of life, promising to cure the things he feels inside him.
The lyrics are cryptic and open to various interpretations. One interpretation is that the woman represents an internal force or temptation, luring the singer towards something that may seem too good to be true, but that has a steep price. The line "she was coming closer to me with simple words, but in her eyes I swear I could see the universe" illustrates the singer's fascination with her, while "she used to say that all the time like I'm destined to be all persuaded" hints at her manipulative nature.
The lyrics also suggest that the woman may be offering him fame, fortune, or power in exchange for his soul, as evidenced by the line "only king I would be, they would worship me, fame and fortune on the line, don't need no more crime." However, the singer seems to be aware that this comes with a significant cost and he is hesitant to give in. The lyrics highlight the internal battle between the singer's desires and the consequences of his choices.
Line by Line Meaning
She spoke so loosely
The woman spoke in a way that was casual and without restraint.
Persuasively
Her words were intended to convince and influence me.
Like she knew me
Her words were so familiar that they made it seem like she already knew me.
She knew where I lay to sleep
She had knowledge of my most intimate and vulnerable moments.
She was coming closer to me with simple words
Despite using simple language, she was getting closer to me and gaining power over me.
But in her eyes I swear I could see the universe
Her eyes were captivating and seemed to hold all the mysteries and knowledge of the universe.
With a cooling thirst she asked for my biggest curse
She asked me about the deepest and most painful parts of my life, as if she was thirsty for that knowledge.
Asked me what I'd change in life, what's the biggest worst
She asked me what I would change about my life and what my biggest regret was.
I didn't want to
I was hesitant to answer her question.
But she was hypnotizing
Her power over me was like hypnosis.
So I told her what I've gone trough to seek enlightenment
I shared my experiences of seeking spiritual awakening with her.
She selected me
She chose me for a specific reason.
She used to say that
This was something she had said before.
All the time like I'm destined to be all persuaded
She made it seem like it was my destiny to be convinced by her.
Mentioned to me how she look for people just like me
She revealed that she seeks out people with specific traits, like me.
With attention span, greater than the barrier reef
She seeks people with great focus and concentration.
Plus some knowledge of the street and a lack of green
She looks for people with street smarts and who are not overly focused on material possessions.
With mentality that's deserving some release
She seeks out people with a mindset that deserves some kind of liberation or freedom.
And a mind full of pictures that the world should see
She wants to find people with unique and valuable perspectives that can benefit the world.
Only king I would be, they would worship me
She wants to gain power and control over others, to the point of being worshipped like a king.
Fame and fortune on the line, don't need no more crime
She is willing to commit a crime to gain fame and fortune, but does not want to do anything else illegal.
World of sinners for a dime had me thinking for a while
The world is full of sinners who are willing to do immoral things for money, and this prospect made me think deeply.
But the reason for her smile was my misery
The woman takes pleasure in causing suffering and pain to others, which she finds amusing.
So I never trusted her over empathy
I knew that she did not have my best interests at heart, and did not trust her ability to empathize with me.
In this world ain't no shit for free
Nothing in this world comes for free or without a cost.
So tell me what you want from me, I don't got a lot to give
I do not have much to offer, so I want to know what she wants from me.
She said, no she don't want no belongings
The woman is not interested in material possessions.
But for the price of only one she would open up this ocean for me
For a small price, she would give me access to something very valuable.
She asked for the essence of life, The holy spirit inside
She wants me to give her the most important part of myself, my spirit or essence.
The one that opens up the paradise
This spirit is essential to accessing a state of paradise or enlightenment.
She asked for the hold of my soul
The woman is asking for total control of my life and my being.
For permission to decide when it's time for me to
She wants to make all the decisions in my life and tell me when to do certain things.
For the pistol and my mind to be used when she wants to change a life
She wants me to be her instrument for change, using my mind and a pistol if necessary to get people to conform to her ideas.
Change the course of time
She wants to have the power to alter the course of history or the future.
Change the lights in the sky
She wants to control natural phenomena like the stars or the weather.
There's no enter sign, check my enterprise
There are no barriers to her plans or schemes, and she is fully committed to them.
Drop a stain of your blood on her dress then you kiss her twice
This could be interpreted as a sexual act or a violent act, with the implication that it will lead to some kind of power exchange or bond.
Just resist to hide all distress in your sight
Even if I am in pain or upset, I should resist showing it so as not to give her any more power over me.
Cause she knows that you're blessed inside, I mean
She believes that I have the potential for greatness or enlightenment, which is why she wants to control me.
I can't deny
I cannot ignore the attraction or draw that she has on me.
A legendary life
She promises me a life of greatness or notoriety.
But tell me is it worth the price
I need to consider whether this promise of greatness is worth the cost or sacrifice that I would have to make.
I can cure the things you feel inside you babe
The woman believes that she has the power to heal or fix any personal problems that I may have.
You just have to stay
The only thing I need to do is stay with her or follow her commands.
Don't you overthink at night a text to me
She wants me to text her without thinking too much or questioning her motives.
Usually I'm awake
She is always available and waiting for me to reach out to her.
Girl it ain't no thing if we do start too late
The time of day or night does not matter to her; she is always ready and willing to act.
Time is there to waste
She believes that time is not valuable or important, and can be wasted without consequence.
Now you gotta take it in and don't exhale
I must accept what she is offering me without question or hesitation.
Helps you fly away
This promise or offer will allow me to escape my current problems or situation and experience something greater.
Lyrics © O/B/O DistroKid
Written by: L.A Bluez
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@MoneyManBLUES
JUST LIKE A WOMAN, by R.L. Burnside
My friend Don Deering helped me to got the lyrics
"There was Adam, as happy as a man could be,
But Eve was tryna* mess with that old apple tree,
That's just like a woman, that's just like a woman, that's just like a woman.
They'll do it every time.
There was Adam, as happy as a man could be,
But Eve's got to mess with that old apple tree,
That's just like a woman, that's just like a woman, that's just like a woman.
They'll do it every time.
Samson thought Delilah was on the square,
One night she clipped him for all his hair.
That's just like a woman, that's just like a woman, just like a woman.
They'll do it every time."
* The right words are "trying to" but he pronounces it "tryna"
@doctorjackyll
I CAN'T PASS A DAY WITHOUT LISTEN TO THIS SONG. awesome !!
@bamboozledandi
I know nothing about music but know I can't turn this guy off. Could listen to him 24 hours a day! Blues is the BEST! HIS blues! Corey Harris is right up there too.
@Raiderfn31
the BEST bluesman
@Funkstarfish
I didn't listen to old acoustic blues until this came on. I didn't play guitar until i heard this. never felt the motivation. Now i can't stop. The only thing you have to know about music is what you like...
@Danster547
“No way, no way!” That dues cracking me up
@elpanchito421
possibly the best two minutes you'll find on youtube
@Squeege85
RL Burnside, an amazing and underappreciated bluesman.
@butchermachine
RL Burnside was and always will be a fucking beast.
@Raiderfn31
when I die...I hope to meet R.L......thats my heaven
@bennyjazzful
WOW WOW WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From a 72yo Aussie fan.