Customer Reviews

Too Bad Jim

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a good CD but it weights in at only 41 minutes which is inexcusably short for a "live" CD; I mean, this guy probably jammed all night! And, though it was recorded live at Junior Kimbrough's Juke Joint, it was subsequently cleaned up at Fat Possum Studios which is why it doesn't have much of a "live" feel--there's hardly any audience or background noise which can add to the excitment of the recording.

A much better, and longer (53 minutes), Burnside CD is "Burnside On Burnside", which was also recorded live but has all of the electricity of a live peformance. If you can afford only one Burnside CD then "Burnside On Burnside" is the one to get.

In his documentary "Deep Blues," eccentric producer Robert Palmer introduced us to a brand of blues that comes not from the Delta, but from the hill country region of northwest Mississippi. While it bears a vague resemblance to its lowlands cousin, Hill Country Blues is a whole 'nother critter altogether. It is, as Palmer describes in the liner notes of this CD, a "slashing, droning trance-blues," a "churning, jamming one-chord exercise in stamina and mass-hypnosis."

Too many recordings these days suffer from excessive post-production, processed until they've been homogenized, sterilized, or just plain castrated, but this ain't slicked-up big city blues, Bubba. Uh Uh. Robert Palmer is a blues bloodhound; he knows where the Real Blues live, and on this CD records them in their element as they happen. The results are, in a word, profound.

Burnside plays a wicked, ratty slide over the top of a hypnotic backbeat laid down by backup guitarist Kenny Brown, bassist Dwayne Burnside and drummer Calvin Jackson. Recorded live at a jukejoint owned by fellow bluesman Junior Kimbrough, "Too Bad Jim" is raw, nasty & compelling, coming through with all the fevered urgency of a jukejoint jam session.

".44 Pistol" is a raucous and swaggering counterstroke to the haunting cover of Lightnin' Hopkins "Death Bell Blues" which follows. Two other Hopkins tunes, "Short Haired Woman" and "Miss Glory B." get the Burnside treatment. "Fireman Ring The Bell" seems to borrow much from Bill Broonzy's "Rollin' & Tumblin'."

This is Deep Blues as it should be heard, bare and honest without any fancy production tricks to spoil it. Just buy it.

Old style country blues cranked up to hard-rock volumes. No generic Chicago shuffle here, instead a truly strange and hypnotic Fred McDowell meets John Lee Hooker boogie. Brilliantly played and sung. Extremely raw and well produced blues. If you crank up this album it sounds like the band is in the room with you, making it up as they go along.

If you think the blues is just depressing music, pick this disc up, pop it in your stereo and crank it. RL ROCKS!! This album is just one huge groove after another. It's hard, it's heavy, it's loud and it's the man's best work. If you have this you have the most essential music in his cannon. And you have something that will get your head bobbin' and your feets-a-stompin'! There is a reason this man is beloved by many young blues fans. The reason is this disc!

"Too Bad Jim" is old-fashioned. The rhythm is all - bulldozing everything in its inexorable drive to put you in a trance. And not some hippie, peace&love-type trance either. "Too Bad Jim" will inspire you to drink bad bourbon and curse around children. The comparisons to John Lee Hooker are apt; both drive the same way. But where Hooker's music has a liquid smoothness, Burnside is the sandpapery chin of tomorrow's hangover.

Hard to believe this record came out over 10 years ago and now both the producer and the artist are dead. RIP, RL! You were the root, the blues walking and talking like a man. Anyone who doesn't own this record should purchase it immediately and play at maximum volume while making love to someone else's woman.

"Too Bad Jim" absolutely pummels "Mr. Wizard" and any other R.L. Burnside discs that feature strange white-boy rockers John Spencer Blues Explosion (there's nothing "blues" about Spencer). This is the real deal. Droning, hypnotic Mississippi hill country blues, "Too Bad Jim" reaches for the old instead of courting the new and the disc is the richer because of it. Burnside covers Lightnin' Hopkins and traditional songs, molding each cut into his own unique style. He is always worth listening to, but those more recent attempts to be hip can't hold a candle to this.

Ever been in a bar, store or restaurant, not really listening to the music being piped into your brain, when suddenly WHAM, a new CD is played and you rush to the bar tender or front desk and ask "what is this, its incredible"? Well, thats how this CD hit me. I've always been a blues fan, but this sound is different. It reminded me of Led Zepplin if they grew up in Mississippi. Hard, driven, raw, swampy are the words that come to mind. A great introduction to a unique blues sound.

This is unshaven, dusty, floor-board blues, something to drink a beer to under a spidery, greasy, yellowed light bulb. R. L.'s weathered voice rides through the gritty lyrics with as much wavering siltiness as his metal guitar slide. The back bass and beat are played straight-faced and without frills, raw and undiluted. Thankfully the producers chose to play it hands-off with this one; every hang-nail, every skitter and skip, and every raggedy edge is left intact, meaning that these blues sound exactly the way they are: authentic.

For a live performance, however, this CD is remarkably short. Remarkably. Just as the performers are pulling you into their boot-tappin', head-shakin' world, the songs stop. If there weren't other, longer Burnside records out there, this would be a five-star album. As it is, though, its lamentably short time makes it a wonderful footnote to an already stellar and long-toned career.

r. l. burnside is one of the kings of the "north mississippi hill country" blues. "hill country" blues is a unique style of blues that's more of a long, repetative, one key, groove, than the standard, three key progression you hear in most blues songs. it mostley stays on the one and can change keys at the will of the performer. it's that long, hypnotic groove that counts in hill counrty blues. r.l. burnside has that groove. if you never experienced this type of blues, check it out. if you dig it, check out, the north mississippi allstars-"live at bonnaroo", the black keys -"chulahoma" and hillstomp,"one word".jersey slim