R.L. Burnside - Raw Electric 1979-1980 (2001)

R.L. Burnside
Most young blues fans today know him as Mr. Wizard,
some sort of bluesy proto-punk who is innovating of remix technology to the blues.
These younger fans may not be aware that from the time of his first recording in 1967 until the early 1980s his image was that of solo country acoustic bluesman and that he recorded several albums in this format during those years.
Both of these images were somewhat false, the older one because it was anachronistic and the current one because it involves extensive outside manipulation of his sound. Burnside had switched to electric guitar long before 1967.
The only problem was that he seldom had a guitar and an amplifier that worked.
Sometimes he didn't even have them at all. When George Mitchell recorded him that year,
he let Burnside use his acoustic guitar, whitch was all Mitchell carried with him that year,
on his field recording expedition. The results were spectacular, but probably more a reflection of the Burnside sound of fifteen or twenty years earlier. They established the image, however, of R.L. Burnside was one of the last generation of acoustic Mississippi guitar bluesman……
But whatever his music is surrounded with, whatever manipulation is done to it after he has recorded it, and whatever type of guitar is put in his hands, R.L Burnside himself is always pretty much the same and will give a high quality blues performance.
Few of his fans today are aware that there was another Burnside from around the mid 1970s to the early 1990s,
a Burnside that had his own Band, the Sound Machine, made up of family members, and playing some of the toughest contemporary Mississippi country blues around.
This album, Raw Electric with his band, the Sound Machine, was recorded from 1979 to 1980.

- 17 Tracks -
01 - My Woman Done Left Me
02 - You Don't Love Me
03 - Dust My Broom
04 - Pretty Woman
05 - Last Night (I Lost The Best Friend I Ever Had)
06 - Slippin' And Slidin'
07 - Going Down South
08 - Rolling And Tumbling
09 - How Many More Years
10 - Well, Well, Well
11 - Leave Me And My Woman Alone (Friend Of Mine)
12 - My Baby Caught The Train (Who's Been Talkin')
13 - Scrambling For My Shoes (Walking Blues)
14 - Sitting On Top Of The World
15 - Searching For My Baby
16 - Going Away, Baby
17 - Jumper Hanging Out On The Line


R.L. Burnside - Vocal (Tracks 1, 3-5 7-13 15-17) Guitar (3-9, 13-14, 16-17)
Joseph Burnside - Guitar (Tracks 1-6, 10-12, 15)
Daniel Burnside - Guitar (1-3, 6, 10-12, 15)
Calvin Jackson - Drums (1-8, 10-12, 14-17)
Duwayne Burnside - Drums (Track 13)
Robert Avant - Vocal and Guitar (Track 8)

Tracks 1-12 recorded at R.L. Burnside's home near Independence, Mississippi, USA
Tracks 1 and 2 on August 1, 1979 / Tracks 3-12 August 25, 1979.
Track 13 recorded at Cordova, Tennessee, February 14, 1980.
Tracks 14-16 recorded at the Center of Southern Folklore, Memphis, TN, on July 22, 1980.
Track 17 recorded at the University of Memphis, August 15, 1980.
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R.L. Burnside - Raw Electric (157,5 MB)

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previous Burnsides:

R.L. Burnside - A Bothered Mind
R.L. Burnside - Come On In
R.L. Burnside - Wish I was in Heaven Sitting down


… enjoy!