Well Well Well...: R.L. Burnside 1926-2005

You've seen this story hundreds of times regarding old Mississippi blues artists: work as a sharecropper, drink a little, spend some time in jail (most times, Parchman Farms), have lots of kids, drink a little more, play a guitar in the few free moments you have, play in juke joints across the Delta, drink a lot more (it's free, and most times, it's your payment), entertain crowds with songs and stories, go home, have a nightcap, then get up and do it all over again. Some of the above applied to one Robert Lee Burnside, better known as R.L. (and Rule to friends and family), but his life was sometimes as atypical as his music. Burnside did work as a sharecropper, he spent six months of a two-year jail sentence in Parchman (he was released because his boss was friends with the judge, and he was needed for cotton-picking season -- he was one of the farm's best workers). By blues standards, his 13 kids were a low amount (one died over two decades ago in an auto accident). He did practice and learn to play the guitar, and had a hell of a teacher in Mississippi Fred McDowell (as well as Ranie Burnette). Of course, he played in juke joints (mostly friend and labelmate Junior Kimbrough's joint -- that is, until someone burned it down in 2000). Burnside, who died in a Memphis hospital room when the calendar switched over to September, did want and have some stability in his life, making him unlike most blues musicians in that time and place. He was married to the same woman for over 50 years (Alice Mae). He boasted that only the oldest two of his five sons ever had to pick cotton. Burnside also had a second job as a commercial fisherman (catfish, anyone?). And with all that, he learned to play the guitar.