Kent Burnside – Hill Country Blood
Strolling Bones Records – 2025
10 tracks; 43 minutes
Kent Burnside sets a navy-blue mood on his new record Hill Country Blood. On the leadoff track “Daddy Told Me”, the first verse includes the lines: “My daddy told me, you’re no child of mine/You’re playing that devil music, ain’t gonna make a dime” and it gets more grim from there “My daddy left/I was eight years old/Left my momma, six little souls/From that point I knew, I had the blues.” The repetitive electric guitar riff and voice-only arrangement creates a gripping mood and certainly gets your attention and sympathy. There is some redemption at the end, “Look at me now/Look at me now”.
The title track “Hill Country Blood” is a declaration of place and culture and is certainly a blues song, but one can hear undertones of hip-hop in the beat and vocal phrasing. One of only two covers on the record, John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling King Snake”, continues the spooky feel with fuzzed out guitar, the strong juke joint harp of Damian “Yella P” Pearson, and a great groove. Those first three songs are the heart of the record.
“I Heard” provides some seriously down and dirty guitar licks (the leader plays all the electric guitar tracks on the record). “I Go Crazy” has a hypnotic Hendrix feel, but Pearson’s harp keeps it rooted in the Delta. A Junior Kimbrough cover “You Better Run” is a nod to the tradition and a vehicle for Kent’s distinctive tone and guitar slinging.
This album almost had no choice but to fulfill a southern blues tradition. There’s magic in the walls at legendary Royal Studio in Memphis, where this was recorded and so many Hi Records stars (Al Green, Ann Peebles, O.V. Wright, Otis Clay, and others) created their classics in the 1960s and 70s.
It was produced by Boo Mitchell, the son legendary Hi Records producer Willie Mitchell. Burnside, of course, comes from a long line of blues men himself. His grandfather was Hill Country Blues legend R.L. Burnside, his uncle Garry Burnside (R.L.’s son) plays bass on this album, and his cousin Cedric Burnside is a noted traditional blues artist in his own right. Kent was encouraged by his grandfather not to copy him, but develop a style of his own, which he has accomplished.
He hasn’t released much original music over his 20-plus year career, but Hill Country Blood is proof that he may have been overlooked. Burnside has plenty to offer the family legacy and fans looking for authentic blues.
