Burnside on gut-bucket blues

In the mid- to late-1990s, music fans discovered R.L. Burnside after a strange but fortunate series of events that included help from alt-rocker Jon Spencer, album production by a Beck cohort and inclusion on a "The Sopranos" soundtrack.\nIt's too bad it had to come to that, because the 75-year-old Burnside has been cranking out high-energy, gut-bucket blues for decades. With Burnside on Burnside, a live album recorded mostly at the Crystal Ballroom on Burnside Street in Portland, Ore., listeners are shown how powerful -- and fun -- the blues can be in the hands of a master.\nBacked only by grandson Cedric Burnside on drums and "adopted son" Kenny Brown on guitar, R.L. rips through a loose but intense set of stripped-down, relentless blues that can best be described as grunge-boogie. \nWhile Cedric pounds out a steady, heavy rhythm for his grandfather, R.L. frequently hits on a single note on the guitar and drives it in, much like late blues legend John Lee Hooker did in his classic sides. \nAlthough 2001 has brought a handful of health problems for Burnside, he barely shows it in Burnside on Burnside. A Mississippi native who for many years subsisted as an itinerant farm worker, Burnside conjures up images of sweaty, deep South juke joints and monthly house-rent parties.\nHe brings a freewheeling attitude and devilish sense of humor to the album. Mid-way through the disc, he stops to relate the story of a friend whose son had yet to have a girlfriend at the age of 22. The father implores the son to find a woman to bring home, which the son dutifully does. But the father rejects the girlfriend for a sordid reason: "Son, you can't marry that girl. That's your sister, but your momma don't know it."\nThe son finds a second girlfriend, but the father again balks for the same reason. The son then tells his mother what his father told him. The mother tells her son not to worry. "Son, you can marry either of them girls you want to," she says, "'cause he ain't your daddy, but he don't know it."\nIt's that type of sly, earthy approach that makes Burnside on Burnside so great. It also makes you wonder what took the mainstream so long to find out about R.L. Burnside.