MAN AT WORK

A juke joint just wasn't in the cards. So Cedric Burnside turned the old building into a studio for his hardcore blues workout, Hill Country Love.

- MARK MC STEA

IN THE WORLD of blues, the name Burnside attracts a lot of respect. R.L. Burnside carved out a legendary status for himself in the hill country blues genre, and his grandson Cedric has been building a reputation that would make his grandfather proud. Following in the raw, primal tradition laid down by the man he calls Big Daddy, Cedric’s new album, Hill Country Love (Mascot Label Group), is a prime slice of timeless blues that could have been recorded anytime over the past 60 years. Given that I Be Trying, Burnside’s last album, won a Grammy in 2022, it would seem the stakes were high when it came to recording the new record, which was produced by North Mississippi Allstars guitarist and producer Luther Dickinson. That didn’t turn out to be the case.

“I actually wrote this record at the end of 2021. I was done with it before I won the Grammy,” Burnside says with a laugh. “I never do anything under pressure. I just try to do what my heart tells me to do in the moment. I feel like the universe always gives you something to write about and you have to just snatch it when it comes.”

The Grammy did have one very palpable effect though. “What did change was the size of my audiences,” Burnside says. “There was a lot more people, and plenty of them didn’t know about hill country blues.”

The album’s liner notes say it was “recorded in an old building in Ripley, Mississippi.” Why did you choose such an atypical location to record?

Yeah, I guess it was kind of a strange choice. I’d originally planned to make it a juke joint. I spend a lot of time in Ripley — I have a good friend there — and I bought the building in 2022 when I was on the Voices of Mississippi tour [