04 June 2019 (gig)
06 June 2019
If you want a perfect example of North Mississippi Hill Country Blues you couldn’t have had a better one than Cedric Burnside gave us Tuesday night at Dingwalls.
Grandson of the late R. L. Burnside, he was brought up by him and you can hear the master’s music in everything he does.
Taking to the stage on his own, he played around 40 minutes of solo Blues, just him and his guitar. Every eye in the place was focused on him as he delivered with a sweet baritone and choppy and strident guitar. Somehow he managed to combine bass lines and lead together on the guitar and the crowd was rapt with attention – not easy shutting up a Camden crowd but Burnside managed it.
The second half of his set brought on Brian Jay on drums and latterly taking over on guitar while Cedric took to the drums and that took us further into the Hill Country style with martial drums, chiming guitar but always that terrific voice. Brian’s spare drumming was excellent, very much in the unadorned style that Hill Country Blues thrives on. The audience at this point were dancing and cheering every number and when he finally finished there were a good number still calling for more encores until the PA music started up again.
Support for the night was twofold.
Firstly a short set by Jimmy Regal & The Royals that got the crowd well set up with their Feelgood-esque hard R&B – Joff Watkins playing some fine harmonica and sharp and to the point vocals – a band I’ll be watching out for, for sure.
That was followed by Todd Albright, a solo Blues singer whose 12 string acoustic and quiet vocals were rather lost in the crowd chatter.
A brilliant night as part of this year’s Future Juke. Cedric Burnside did his grand-daddy proud.
