How did we miss this?

At Ashvegas, we’ve been so caught up in the hurricane news that we totally missed the passing of R.L. Burnside on Saturday. We’ll let the news obituary do most of the work here; all we can say is that we’ve never heard blues like Burnside blues – in your face, loud, overpowering blues. Blues that hurts, rather than soothes. We love it.

From the N.Y. Times:

R. L. Burnside, a blues singer and guitarist who found fame only in his gray years, when his music was embraced by young rock fans and remixed with electronic beats, died yesterday at a hospital in Memphis. He was 78 and lived near Holly Springs, Miss.

With a raw, unadorned electric guitar style and hypnotic one-chord songs, Mr. Burnside’s music was seen by critics as a link to the sound of Muddy Waters and Mississippi Fred McDowell. That might not have been a coincidence: Mr. Burnside, who was born in Harmontown, Miss., grew up near McDowell and learned to play guitar from him, and said that a cousin of his had married Muddy Waters.

But Mr. Burnside’s music had a rough, obstinate energy that also appealed to contemporary rock musicians and fans, and in the 1990’s, after decades of obscurity, Mr. Burnside began to find wide success. …

Soon he was performing as an opening act for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, an avant-garde rock band. … One of Mr. Burnside’s albums, “Come On In,” remixed his music with electronic beats.

In his recordings, Mr. Burnside’s music could be gentle, but in concert it had a blare (and volume) closer to AC/DC than Muddy Waters. Usually sitting down during the shows, Mr. Burnside cut an odd figure, smirking quizzically and making few remarks to the crowd. A former sharecropper from one of the most segregated areas of the Deep South, he often seemed bemused by his popularity among white rock fans and celebrities.

My favorite Burnside album: “Ass Pocket Full o’Whiskey.” Peace.