From the New York Times
November 21, 2000
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK; Blue Moods And White Lightning
By ANN POWERS

Old cars pop up often in Mississippi blues songs, and the genre itself is like one of those beautiful clunkers: its great engine has been driven into the ground, and fetishists love it more for its form than its function. But nobody knows a vehicle the way an owner does, and the players dedicated to this rusty, still powerful form understand its problems as well as its propelling force.

The trouble arises in the music's reception. Country blues demands a balance of custom and experimentation, and its loose mix of folk basics with rock and soul snippets makes sense in the context of modern rural life.

Beyond home, though, many fans view the blues as primally authentic. Artists are asked to be the past's avatars.

R. L. Burnside, one of today's most popular country bluesmen, has developed a wise response to such expectations. At the Village Underground on Thursday, Mr. Burnside, a 73-year-old guitarist and singer, gazed out at a packed-in crowd that included movie stars and underground rock icons and just grinned. His smile was a cloak into which he could retreat, no matter what these patrons thought.

His music was exacting in its simplicity. The slide guitars of Mr. Burnside and Kenny Brown ran a close race, spurred on by forthright drumming from Mr. Burnside's grandson, Cedric.

The elder Mr. Burnside shouted and moaned lyrics mining familiar images: whiskey's white lightning, a heart as weathered as an old shoe. The insular blend of sparse words and circular riffs was rooted in Mr. Burnside's understated picking style.

Mr. Brown showed a fondness for flashy runs up the fret board, integrating them into the snug structure Mr. Burnside established. Within this range, repetition stretched the sound, turning it ambient.

On his most recent album, I Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down (Fat Possum), Mr. Burnside's blues is augmented by electronic loops and scratches provided by young friends acquired since his late rise to fashionability. The mix works, but live, the lack of effect was effect enough.