ALBUM REVIEW: Cedric Burnside Adds New Angles to Admire in ‘Hill Country Love’
Grant Britt
Posted On April 3, 2024
Cedric Burnside has his head and his heart in the hills. On his latest, Hill Country Love, the music is a little grittier than on his previous Grammy-winning release, 2021’s I Be Trying, for which he took home the Best Traditional Blues Album award. That project was recorded at Royal Studios in Memphis, where Al Green cut a passel of soul classics on Hi Records in the ’70s. This one took shape in Ripley, Mississippi, in a building Burnside had picked to be his juke joint over a fast-paced, two-day session with the help of co-producer Luther Dickinson, who also pitched in on bass and slide guitar.
Cedric Burnside (photo by Jim Arbogast)
The sound is stark, but the material is not all somber. Grandson of Legendary bluesman R.L. Burnside, Cedric retains the spirit of granddaddy’s music, filling it out a bit and pointing it in different directions while still staying bolted to the frame.
The love-song theme is not all mushy and gushy, but more like a heart with arrows sticking out of it. Burnside reveals his pragmatist nature on the opening cut, “Closer.” On the street-smart hymn, Burnside confesses to his Lord that he sometimes falls short when tested on his faith in every way, asking for a pardon for his practical nature: “Please forgive me for my worldly ways / I keep a nine beside me just in case.”
Burnside aims his love arrows a little more down to earth on “Coming Real to You,” acknowledging that while he is the family breadwinner and a big ol’ love bucket, that is all subject to change: “I can love somebody in every way / But I can also leave on any given day / Remember the good times, and hold them dear / But if ain’t nothing left, I can disappear.”
He lightens things up considerably with “Smile,” anchored by a string-poppin’ funk bass line courtesy of Dickinson, refusing to be down even when his truck falls apart. He stretches the hilly envelope a bit further on “Funky,” sounding like the Ohio Players running up and down the Mississippi hills commanding the natives to join the funkfest.
The title cut is more funky than hilly as well, Burnside hyping himself up to go out on the road and spread Hill Country love all over the flatlanders in his path.
Cedric Burnside’s Hill Country Love is out April 5 on Provogue Records/Mascot Label Group.
