You See Me Laughin': The Last of the Hill Country Bluesmen (Full Documentary)

hmm [Music] i'm going down [Music] i never had the blues in my life slayed him with never had the blues in my life my mother didn't want me in the house but i messed mine with a guitar she said your dad's going to hell if you played blue and i know that was there i'm not going to die and go to hell if want to play something about it make a living i know what's that anybody had a blue but would really get you the blue you drive over to your house one night late get out of your car and you meet your cat she healed she healed your wife done gone you got the blues then [Music] [Applause] situation always was and has been very precarious you know i mean nobody is guaranteed tomorrow especially this crowd i knew i had to like record these guys as soon as i saw them just going into that place would have changed everything for me i saw these old guys 55 60 that were just rocking i mean they weren't there for any sort of rear ambition or anything they were just there because they wanted to be there the energy and the rawness of it you know sort of stopped me in my tracks i was like these are the kind of people i want to spend my time with [Music] [Music] uh [Music] i agreed to record three days to record junior kimbrough for three days and we went out there and um we i guess we all met up that day i met matthew i met robert palmer i met junior kimbrough and i met um john herman j.j herman it was kind of magic happened that day [Music] hey it was sort of the what i think now might have been like the beginning of fat possum records maybe it began a couple years before that in a bar or something but it was still on a napkin and had one record to its name hadn't sold very well there wasn't that much interest in it until robert palmer produced all night long [Music] well i used to [Music] when he started playing music he was something like eight years old i think it's mostly all he ever did my uncles they used to feel like that's where i might have from them you know watching them but i'd have to still get the guitar when they leave going to work then we cannot get their guitars and play them you know he was the most self-confident of any of the any of the guys we've ever had he knew what what he was doing you know he did not want to play covers and would not [Music] junior have never left out of mississippi he has never actually ever went any place to change the sound of his music [Music] in fact he don't have any education so he don't have any music style of music he just prayed for what he hears and that is all now sometimes i may be riding down the road and want to come into my mind you know and i'll just start to sing i have to sing a good while before won't leave me you know what i mean tell the people who have come here and offered him free lessons and but he won't he won't accept that we were brought in to meet junior he received us like royalty meaning he was royalty he kind of put his hand out and just you know kind of acknowledged acknowledges in a gentlemanly fashion then kind of grunted you know he'd obviously had to go through this um this routine a few times and he wouldn't know you know for them they're saying they're from you too you to look they're from youtube juniors going yep you know me too you too you know and i guess in some college campuses we wear big shots but right there in holly springs we couldn't fit us in a shot glass and it kind of slowly makes his way through everyone and he walks up to the to the microphone and it's like an hour before he gets there so now it's minutes it's like 30 minutes 2010 and he's just coming [Music] [Music] you know that's what you want uh-huh and uh um so i actually all of a sudden i thought i was oh dear oh dear me um uh what are we doing here uh this man obviously means business [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] how dare you [Music] my father a lot of guys just love to see the way that he played wonder how he performed like that because it's a type of music that really just it gets you moving when you come there when you feel like you're down i mean let me pick you up man it picks you up and you know once you listen to it it's there man it's there you can't shake it off it'll just put you into a trance if it's hypnotic and it's it's so laid back it's so laid back it's very seductive it always sounds like [Music] [Music] the way that sounds i can see why that guy's got so many kids because women can't resist him you got that right he didn't have no problem getting them women union would tell him i'm mad i got a wife you don't want to go no hardest right [Music] she ain't been too long got out of jail for shooting another woman he was asking me now how i felt uh if he um with other women it was fine with me because i knew that he loved me and i know that i loved him so [Music] he told me one day he said after working it up i guess it was cat or john deere i don't know where he was like you know i just said [ __ ] it he said i knew i wasn't really going to have anything and he said the one thing i was determined not to do anymore was to help anyone else get famous or to get their music out there he said from now on i was only going to play my stuff [Music] so it's like he almost like sat down and deliberately came reinvented the blues without sounding retro just to avoid helping other people maybe nothing mean spirit about it but just to somehow to conscientiously put his artistic stamp on everything um i kept feeding around on the guitar like this like this [Music] well all right i see that's what bounce back in my head see like this [Music] you know i did no good [Music] it's an old song that i put together back when i was 18 years old about tokyo rose you know i love that woman she brought [Music] up [Music] you know man sisters drop that atom bomb the records they're putting out really are about the most interesting records that anybody's putting out you know i have trouble with like you know when siddell davis gets way attitude i have a little trouble [Music] it's just his style you know i mean it's it's sounds out of tune when you hear it to begin with because you're not used to hearing that tuning but when you listen to it for five or ten minutes all of a sudden it sounds like it's into you know you just fall into his tuning [Music] i notice every time i go to the supermarket store whatever see them red big fat ladies i mean all color kind whatever and i said well my goodness i wonder why there's so many fat women here in pine bluff now you go to chicago place like that or new york you go to new york you don't see very many fat people maybe they're there they don't be out and something that thing come to me and say if you like fat women um that's just the way it is it's like a man like little women and i like them skinny i don't care how little they get but until get too big [Music] come on [Music] come on [Music] any place i ever saw [Music] that stopped me from walking it's not the first time i've been while i couldn't get around ah i had 12 on my little people 19th century you know what you hear me good 1936 polio hit me that troubleless hit me in people and you see yourself i ain't got no i got no hangs as well but i can play your song a lot of people ask me and say well how are you playing guitar and your hands missing right there i said well one thing about it i don't know cut in on me you're trying to explain nothing to a lot of people they look at it with their own eyes they don't see what you're talking about the way he just says i casually relearned to play the guitar he's like i flipped it over i you know found an alternate tuning and used a butter knife to do what my hands could no longer even hope to do all right i don't go under me make a slide do you see what i'm doing i'm going to slide i do mine over the top i record yeah from there he is able to earn a meager living for himself he was playing with robert nighthawk at the time and he was always in constant physical pain from polio then in his 20s while playing a barn in saint louis [Music] well we planted this place in east st louis this rumbling come up in the back gambling back then and guy he one guy pulled up a gun you know and i guess he thought he was gonna shoot maybe one i don't know i wonder he rushed out and ran me over and broke me up pretty bad they said it's been sorrow [Music] in the hospital five months and six days because i had my leg up in traction after i got out of there okay i had to go stay in my bed two or three months long maybe about eight months after i you know when i got home why get around it broke down here and right there and busted my knee and then was broke right across here that's all right [Applause] from then on he's confined to a wheelchair and it still didn't phase him i mean you would think at that point anyone would be tired of fighting and struggling for every single thing but not siddell i mean he's still rolling his wheelchair into the jungle hut in pine bluff arkansas and that was where he and bob palmer met and really hit it off bob really believed in siddell and he was writing for the times at the time and scott's adele up to new york and wrote about him a bunch and bob really felt saddell was probably the only survivor playing blues sounded like the original guy on the post and the more i'll play the more things i run across the more things i found out you know what i mean more things that i can do on the guitar that i haven't been doing see because you use your imagination that's what makes a great musician you use your imagination and you can execute what you think about well are we i wasn't catholic i will get down in the world will i have you good looking women fishing after me [Music] fishing out to me oh well i was uh 58 years old before i picked up a guitar now i'm 76 years old and my wife live and then i started i didn't know about a guitar can't read can't write can't spell nothing told me but i can play this guitar when i help you got baby she wasn't on the yard my wife left me then and that night and i walked out there the moon shining they poured off and i looked up at that moon just waiting i say lord i guess she didn't run off so many times and i said lord i guess this is here i went on crossover got my chair and i recently got my guitar and i sit down everybody heating and i look back over there they beat it they get tired [Music] [Music] well i ain't gonna worry baby baby if you are come back i started hitting that thing i'm straight going just just like i do now yes i feel so bad [Music] if my baby would come on me i left him right there i sitting there crying and cleaning that damn my baby come on [Music] when i got six years old my daddy started me applying to me then when i got up a little bigger he whooped me yeah i i didn't do it but that's where i had to take that whooping forward he just grabbed snatched button and all them snatched him over all down around my leg hit me side here with his feet knocked me down and grabbed me put my head toward him his leg taking his hand and reached back then grabbed me right there i don't know when he when he quit beating me hit me i hit him get out of here and get in that garden and hold it i just grabbed my clothes up lit out the door running blood running all down my leg i went in the garden went to the full inn down there my little boat hanging out the sack and when i think that whole do me a deep hole down in the ground like it was hot in summertime you know mama calmed she said why are you here i said yeah me a dying mama she come on again she said what's the matter i said that a foot man whooped me up between my leg mama and she she pushed the scene there she she said why is that black [ __ ] i laying up in the bed my little legs open good black egg that nut out on the side hanging out i don't know what happened to it that's the only thing wrong with me looking down he could be [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] wow [Applause] i got to get me a pair of batteries for it but other than that it runs good man i used to be on the field flying when i was a little boy man flying a mule and the saturday morning we'd like a little bit finishing up something my granddaddy said well we got to finish that this morning and man the picnic being started i hear them drums going on [Music] boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom and i watched him play i said i sure wish i could do that and after i got up about 16 17 i got where i would started trying to play you know you know but it didn't sound like i could never be no guitar player because did nothing i tried come out right you i'm going over that hill i'm going over that hill well i ain't gonna stop until i reach my god the spiritual the way saying i learned we used to sing in the church me and my sister when we were little bitty fellas you know and my momma liked that but when i started playing the blues when i first started she didn't like it most of these guys learned on their own r.o burnside it was boogie chilling but you know johnny hooker's big song from there he learned from mcdowell and a couple of other legendary masters i grew up around pretty close to fred mcdowell and i liked the lightning hopkins music and you know red magdalene and muddy water lee hooker and after i got up where i could play i went up to chicago and would stay with my daddy for a while to get me a better job and start and farming i i run up on muddy water he was married to a fresh girl in the mind i didn't know it and i used to go to his house every two or three nights right a week to listen to him play you know watch him play then nobody never teach me nothing but i have sitting to watch people you know when i got to where i could play if fred mcdowell would be going out playing at a house party he'd come by there and asked me to come on go with him you know i wouldn't play something cause he he gonna get drunk about after he played a while you know we played man from eight o'clock to three or four o'clock in the morning probably get three dollars and some whiskey you get drunk you know you had to buy them three what you got like a lot of the blues musicians were not so much innovators as they sort of improved on or sort of put their signature on songs that they really liked ariel still does play a lot of covers that probably no one living her would consider a standard [Music] know [Music] burnside was born around oxford mississippi he jumped around from job to job all sort of farm related working as a sharecropper working at a gin moved to chicago when he was in his early 20s and it was in chicago that um daryl lost most of his family my brother he used to be a doctor but i guess he was messing around selling them some young people have to say killed him you know and they said my daddy had got his check you know and somebody some guy saw him and he went he liked to drink he went to the liquor store and they killed him [Music] but i don't know what happened that caused my other brother and my other uncle to get killed but like i said it all happened in about eight months old women got killed five people ain't no way i would live with that now man i lived as three years but at that time you could be walking down the street and be by drunk lay down on side the street and you go to sleep all night after that r.l like probably anyone would left chicago and came back to holly springs he's been living in and around holly springs ever since [Music] if you be my brain [Applause] you say [Music] i don't know no one else [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] around [Music] my [Music] was he a good dancer [Music] well i'd known a brother three or four years and me and him used to run around together and gamble and i take him home one morning and i got to meet his sister you know he didn't know how to play a good time when i fight no about two months after then we got married we've been together ever since 50 years ariel's our most successful artist but it hasn't changed his life at all i mean it seems like every time we start raising rl's performance fees he's got that much more people that he's supporting [Music] yeah i rented the house in the project when i started towing you know but for the last three or four years i've been buying one [Music] you used to go visit him after you know he he was in prison and stuff right were you around when that happened [Music] [Music] up to him in the lord about dying you know it didn't look bad because it was in the back of the head wasn't it yeah because most of the time people when they when they claim self-defense it's usually you know when the guy's walking towards them not no yeah the judge asked me you know i really didn't shoot him in self-defense i said no sure i shot him in the league and he jumped a bit well you caught him in the head didn't you yeah squash on the head and one's read through there why was he after you well i beat him out of some money again and i was gambling hard then you know and i'd beat him out of some money and he's married about that dice yeah shooting days with the dice loaded rl no no no the gun was the gun was loaded how many money did you beat him out of oh about 400 and back then that was a lot of money you know it gave me i was five years but i didn't the man i was working with he's a big man you know you know i didn't say it but six months down there that's a good deal [Music] me what's that song about though well it's uh just uh it's a lot of stuff you know we made it up and put it in there so it doesn't mean anything really no love is the devil but it won't get me that's right loves the devil but it won't get me i don't believe it i'm gonna let him get me [Music] is my grandson mr celtic poinsettias [Music] [Music] me [Music] is [Music] is my adopted son mr kenny brown [Music] [Music] hmm well [Music] [Applause] [Music] don't be so easy [Music] [Applause] i thought you'd been serving the devil well uh a lot of people said the devil but they are always called on the load i killed to me he cut me and i couldn't bear i you know i went with the young man 18 years old here me coming up there behind me and looking down on me and everything i know he could at me i feel like a hot piece of iron when he went in my back he stalled missed my spine just about that far i live out of that [ __ ] and carry that [ __ ] when i turn around and eat him i throw that [ __ ] up on his head back then you could buy the most sweet blade parking lot for 25 cents yeah and i hear a kill one i just want my hand my pocket i ate good teeth then not a fool around i just hit and i just kept cutting [Music] he left that knife in my back i just jumped in and looked in gloves [Music] come up and don't come for the police got the outcome he gave me about a house and got two quilts [Music] carried me down in a [ __ ] behind everything you couldn't see down in there everywhere i stayed down there two night and day daughter foreign [Music] modeler i'm thinking about it i'm saying saying i'm saying all of my lowdown records you can't you you ain't supposed to be doing things you hear other people do you say what what hey what come out your mouth or gold in your heart or something some kind of way like that [Music] make my getaway [Music] and you see where he went to the crossroad and uh stayed there at 12 o'clock when the devil played guitar and handed back to him you saw that i saw the movie yeah um well that was that was actually true right that's true blue is the devil music johnny farmer was a guy that had three songs in his head that he really enjoyed hearing and he bought a guitar and learned how to play those three songs and that was the extent of why he picked the guitar up and [ __ ] i mean i feel horrible because i i wanted to record him i thought he was great and he was just like no he goes let's just teach you to play and you'll do a way better job than i could do i didn't even want to make no record about the fact i told him to don't even put my name on i think i did and then he finally consented came to oxford we made a record and then his hell started getting bad and he blamed everything on making that record i hope that one james millie james baby see what you have done [Music] where you stole all of my money baby you got me on the run [Music] do you like playing the police music whenever you're playing it i liked it for myself i didn't like to entertain about it i know i'd rather pay somebody else to do that at all that's a hard work if you don't know it's not easy to put a performance guitar and sang gone you know what i love it and i always want to be a part of you you know i've been lost in my time and i stay long so now i have to bruise all the time can be [Music] i think it was october of 94 95. god i must have spent like every third day hunting down az payton the situation was if it was raining enough where that they couldn't get the tractors into the field or would kind of run it up too bad then easy was free to record i remember i finally was able to get him up to oxford and he sat down one night and played like 37 songs straight we were amazed i mean i was sitting there just you know hoping they could switch the reels of tape quick enough to keep up with them [Music] i tried like hell to get him to i don't know want to make a career out of it and in some ways it was really neat that he was secure or happy enough in his own life and community that he couldn't be swayed at all [Music] [Music] there's so many words and so many songs people got eyes and it's hard to get your own song you know what i mean you know your own style your own talent really hard [Music] after something baby [Music] i know something's going on right [Music] when easy payton died gosh it took us three or four years just to come up with enough cash to release that record [Music] i don't want my guys to die unknown i mean what good does it do them if their music is discovered 10 or 15 years after their death that's why i do all i can to get them on the road to remix their music to whatever it takes to get them into circulation today while it's not too late maybe you get maybe right on here that then we agreed to pay you to do this and you're ready to do this and you sign it and all that stuff and make it legal when we give you the check and cool with that the foundation is rotten it's sitting on the ground the walls are rotting the roof is rotten and leaks the sheetrock's bad the plumbing is [ __ ] up gas lines aren't or rotted out and the wiring he's got stella living here and his three kids and it's falling apart and you know i'm just afraid someone's gonna get hurt and when it rains it rains in on him and it's just it's just it's at a point where it needs to be torn down and fixed so eventually t-model will sell enough records that his record sales will pay for it we're considered an advance on his record sales so hopefully the next record will be good so it'll be a first they feed them they see them camps okay bring them seattle take care you can't beat that the caucasian people just don't do too good a villain with black people i think the sort of typical image of a record guy especially a white guy running a blues label is that well he's ripping them off not that much incentives i've got nothing to forget in all fairness the record industry like almost any other industry or any other capitalism is sort of based on the exploitation of others see i try to explain it to juniors i tried to explain it to all real i really if you got something to say or sell it don't give the man all of your music even part of and let it beg for the rest of it making pain they making money they people and i know some people a fat possum is getting fat because he's a damn possum there hasn't really been a whole lot of money except with rl burnside success for us this is some sort of horrible failure most anyone else in the record industry ain't getting nothing what do you ought to be getting on tour all right i'll go to europe six times seven eight times a year when you get back how much money you got nothing i don't really think it's nobody else's business to know how much we're getting paid you know what i'm saying i only think it's day business to even access that junior wanted it all spelled out he wanted his eating money his drinking money and his pay all separated so he knew exactly what he was going to have when he got home arielle just wanted to know you know what he was getting and when he was going to get it you know somebody told me one time that every record company is going to screw you it's just which one's screwing you the most our whole system is not based on mostly trust with a little mistrust sprinkled in ours is like you know 95 mistrust with some sort of vague semi trust in there friends mean [ __ ] you how mean [ __ ] a lot of blues guys you know they sort of live up to that reputation uh they'll do anything they can to take someone's money the perfect example is like when gary burnsod went to italy with junior kimbrough it was for two and a half weeks and junior paid the kid you know three dollars and 25 cents so they would do anything they could to not pay their health and they just assumed that we applied that reason you know back when they started this record company there wasn't anybody really you know trying to you know seriously record these cares what if i can get a good record out there a good cd or the record out there a good song or whatever you may call it oh well that makes it better for me i make more money and get more jobs bruce matthew is a couple of white angels to team all the four i like them two white boys the tail dragon team rolling forward from greenville mississippi they uh probably act like [ __ ] and you know what i'm saying they probably do a lot of stuff wrong but you know what i'm saying for us they're doing a lot of things right and you went down to the appointment i made for you right the doctor last week yeah how'd that go yeah it went over pretty good he still he gave me some medicine you know it's unstoppable my ear no popping is gone we're good come down to oxford i'll make you ripe [Applause] you you stick a sick through this yes i have to come out to us and like yeah from this side over there again when in june you're supposed to go back uh i i don't forget that i'll find out the d please do because we've got a couple of shows we'll make sure that let me know yeah the 26 we're gonna fly out for one day to denver one day we'll leave on friday come back on saturday you'll be gone less than 24 hours you'll make some good money at least at least twenty five three and three thousand dollars if you don't make that one matthew and i are both gonna get probably not be able to come back so if you want you want to [ __ ] us that's the way you just missed that yeah if you want to [ __ ] us again [Laughter] well i don't i'm gonna try to not to do that he been trying to get to every show that's been booked you know what i'm saying and when he canceled shows i really think it'd be for a reason you know i'm saying it ain't because he don't really want to go i think it'd be for a reason you know what i'm saying because he's been suffering with this sinuses in his ear for a long time and and i guess it's just getting to him and plus he's getting older you know what i'm saying so man i got i got to go to this employing it off again it's so screwed up they don't cut off both of my checks man oh and i got to go up there and talk with them people again cause i talked with the lawyer then i was praying you know since they gave me a disability from that hospital at hot doctor you know and i got to carry that up there and let them see it he said they can't cut my tank off with that huh i mean how much are these chicks adding up to because it's like you're jeopardizing everything well i didn't cut my ssi check off anyway it had been cut off about two years how much was that a month it were a hundred and dollars yeah and then they would mean they cut it down to 71 man oh yeah but you make a lot more than that then they cut it plum oh you make a lot more than that just on in an hour in an hour oh yeah so i would i wouldn't [ __ ] with that one until you're not saying they can't if you you gotta you know like you're disabled yeah well but the thing is though until you you know you just want to give up touring all together i'd leave them little checks alone i'd leave i'd i wouldn't go to i mean you know you know what they're gonna do though if they if they find out how much you've really been making they're gonna put us in jail and they're gonna take everything you've got they can't cut you off as long as you disabled yeah but they find out what you're really making they can catch you off you're scaring me all right i'd please just tell these little checks to go to hell and not mess it up well i'm gonna have to do something you're determined maybe maybe we can all get a sale next to each other the red boy can be still together yeah no i don't i don't want to be with you all that you're not going to be you know spitting spit wads at you you will find a lot of white people who lived with black people and by them living with the black people then some of them will be able to play the blues almost like some of the blacks well i started out learning trying to learn to play guitar taught myself some stuff with a little book i got a little guitar trying to learn a little bit and [Music] got me a decent guitar a little k arch type of momma i was trying to play it and i was about ready to give it up and uh i was sitting there trying to play one day my brother come in and he said that you ought to go over next door oh joe over there next door when i started with joe he just said hit it like this boy and he'd start playing we hit it off big you know so i started going over there every day before i get on the school bus the morning i go there and as soon as i get off i get out and go there we'd sit on the porch in the summertime and play out there joe calico passed and he come down to my house you know and asked me what i teach him how to play guitar and i yeah i started going down there about two three times a week i'd get off doing construction he'd get off the tractor and we'd set up in the house we played 12 1 o'clock then we started going out to the juke joint you don't want to tell about the first time you went there with me yeah rl came he said well i got this place we can play we can make a little money we go down there saturday night he said all right so i went down this house and we drove about 30 40 miles out through the woods finally came to clear and there was a big old house right there we played for a while they have people all hollering and hooping and all the first time i've been around a bunch of you know black people drinking you know i i've been around a bunch of black people but not drinking you know whiskey and everything they're hooping and hollering i'm the only white guy in there and all of a sudden or else is uh brown you keep playing i'm gonna go in the back and gamble i said oh [ __ ] they're gonna hang my ass and uh anyway i went to play and they they went to holler and kept hollering and all and that's why burnside come back in back playing again check me out see if i can make it i guess or if i lived through that i could you can make it then we've been playing together off and on ever since 71. yeah kenny brown is a huge part of fat possum records i mean he was there at the [Music] beginning yeah you see me laughing a lot i'm laughing just to keep from crying it takes rocks and gravel feel a solid [Music] just to keep from [Music] i wanted a tour with rl because i was a fan of of him and his music we were on tour with the blues explosion and john pulled out the two bad gym record and we listened to it almost every day on the road [Music] we were all i think impressed that there was like a real delta bluesman alive that was like connected to the real source you know we discussed like we'd like to play some shows with this guy and uh someone tracked him down and asked or if you wanted to play some shows with the blues explosion in the first place we played the guy said you ever played with this guy before i told him no i said we just that's the first time i'm i've heard about them but it's the first time i've played with them they give me a package of yelp clothes so you're gonna need these i think they were like you know who the hell are these white boys and probably with the name like the blues explosion they thought there it was going to be some bad situation we all kind of come from the same place we're all like white punks you know like you know hate and love our parents and you know and come from like white middle class america pretty much these guys that's not where these guys come from [Music] [Music] [Applause] we'd get up and jam with him and he would come up at the end of our set and play with us so we sort of figure out how to play the songs we sitting up in the room until drinking and telling them those stories and this when he said we should make a helmet out of that man i said no ain't nobody gonna buy that man but finally one day he called me and i was sitting out there on the shade tree there drinking a little beer and my daughter told me he's like there's a phone all right bring it here john spencer are you ready to hell yeah you can't don't help him it can't hurt me on he come on down about two days and he went up here in hollis ring and ran one of them hunting club and we did the album in four hours [Music] oh [Music] i think that record and the whole experience of uh [Music] touring with rl and and getting to know rl and kenny and cedric was a big influence on the blues explosion i had a tour yeah to do and uh i really thought it was important basically to distinguish myself by the company that that i could keep on the tour basically you know they didn't want to be going out with some twerps on stage you know we had no money coming in whatsoever and um it's really a depressing time and you know we got this i got this call i was sitting there i got the skull and he's like hey man this is iggy pop first i thought it was a joke and finally when i realized it was really pop call and i was like yeah we'll definitely be there you know just just tell us when and where finally there one night in washington there's this guy with a sweat sweater that says junior across the front you know this white guitar he was ready to go junior had no idea who he pop was he called him lollipop he liked to joke around a lot iggy would like every night before the show he'd go in and he'd kind of get himself psyched out for the show when you go in there and he's doing these kind of things so he sets me up how long have you been in the business 30 years that's nothing junior would just sit there and he would just laugh at him and he's like lollipop is crazy lollipop is crazy look at the lollipop you know he really it's just really good you know when he sits there sits there playing and he and his kid kenny on drums and you know gary burnside on base and it's just really really strong music you know and you see the people just grooving and we did about 10 cities with a icky pop you know i enjoyed that i really did the boys were real bad they came up to me barry you know like uh very polite maybe the first night you know and then after a couple of nights and he got more relaxed and and finally they said you know well when we get to chicago we're going to have some [ __ ] and and you can have some too like oh well thanks you know that's great yeah we got to chicago and i sort of like avoided the whole deal and and when i got to the gig my uh the beat didn't sound the same and junior was just going on the beat didn't sound right and i looked out of the stage and he had my lighting desire playing drugs because the boys were still off in there yeah pierced oh he was [Music] i don't pissed this wasn't what you just were saying you were going to do you did different a second ago yeah it sounded more better than any time we've made a record that was different or that was um inventive or trying to sort of become relevant today we've gotten so much criticism [Music] damn i mean there's like real real planes check this out an ass pocket of whiskey everybody thought that that possum corrupted rl burnside the way that that record was sort of uh taken apart and the way that i was taking the task by some critics you know uh really sort of stung me you ever been lonely a lot of times you know yeah have you ever been lonely in hollis springs mississippi i didn't thought it sounded too good you know but after a while and and the people a lot of times a lot of more young people come on in that's pocket of whiskey like that you know i mean come on in the same thing people thought it was just um i don't know blasphemy or something to take this old guy and do these these remixes with this stuff but it worked i mean you know his kids loved it it made rl relevant we just have to fix that attitude [Music] the records are fresh they're not cliched they're not dull they're not what you expect and they're exciting well i don't like that too now [Music] next guest tonight is of oxford mississippi and he's here tonight from a song from his critically acclaimed well i wish i was in heaven sitting down please welcome mr r l burnside [Music] oh don't be loud there are not enough purists around to support any company making records that all sound like they were done in 1931. we've got to sort of you know somehow take what we think by the important parts the sort of spirit the sound the integrity of blues and bring it into this century [Music] [Applause] [Music] world i'm sorry i'm sorry right now [Music] me [Music] when i met him i was around 15. [Music] he was at a house party and he was playing the guitar [Music] hello everybody i am [Music] junior cameroon better known as papa so we just having fun well i would like from what uh junior [Music] that's really what i'd like to do don't all know that i used to be a group [Music] a music landmark is lost fire reduces a famous mid-south juke joint to a pile of smoldering debris blues legend junior kimbrough died two years ago last night his world famous junior's juke joint caught fire and tonight it's nothing but charred wood and a pile of ashes sometimes you come here tonight man you can rid him it may sound funny but it's the truth you come right here and pulls up sometimes i still can hear music just like it's playing on the inside man just like if we were playing on this side here it wasn't one sunday you know what i'm saying that then nobody came at least one or two people came every sunday and we played just as hard for one or two people as we would if 150 or 200 people had showed up sometimes they come in and they start playing and everybody in the town will come up with a guitar a lot of fun i mean a lot of fun don't nobody get hurt or nothing like that you know what i'm saying everybody just have fun that's why i go to the club every sunday [Music] yeah feeling in the shape i mean see i'm i'm in a bad shape and people think i hear but i just don't give up i'm a tough [ __ ] what was the last time you met the doctor do you model i don't know man you know when you when you go to the doctor you ain't doing them working up for death the more you stay away from a doctor the better you use and the better you feel no one really got to go to hospital for so and so and when they go there sometimes they get back and sometimes they don't so i ain't taking them chasing that man broke me here i'm gonna let him carry me away that's my doctor you don't know that you're gonna go to heaven though do you yeah i believe anybody else though [Laughter] i live with no one now i live alone you just end up being alone so when you end up being alone you have to live with it i never didn't want to be the guy that was forgotten see many people go there they die they bury them before they can leave the cemetery they don't already forgotten about them i always wanted to be the person to be remembered and made a little history i did that so i'm proud of that [Music] i was in holly spring and they called me told me the house was binding up [Music] i had a couple amplifiers and a guitar one up that i the guitar was handmade if i'll give it to alabama i hated did it when all the grandchildren was at school did nobody get pointing now the lord blessed me for that take away but my i hope i have my health last minute and i can go on another year or two to make a living for my family two months ago rl came down to oxford three arteries were clogged and had an angioplasm and i was like well at least this is getting taken care of and it'll probably scare him into at least taking real good care of himself for a while and and the next morning i get a call from him he's over in a lady luck casino in tunica wanting um a small advance and i'm like jesus christ what are you doing rl he's like oh i'm pushing my luck [Music] all my teeth and under my tongue look out stomach get his dirty [ __ ] calm well well well [Music] laughing at the key from crowds [Music] you don't know my mind [Music] i [Music] you don't know my mind [Music]

Channel: Fat Possum Records

Views: 713,494

Keywords: townes van zandt, independent music, hi records, swamp dogg, rl burnside, wavves, ann peebles, record, live music, al green, oxford, mississippi, courtney marie andrews, spiritualized, Fat Possum, memphis, label, The Weather Station, el-p, phat Possum, the black keys, music video, Fat Possum Records, delta, blues, alligator records, blues documentary, deep blues, robert palmer, fred mcdowell, crawling king snake, going down south, hill country blues, crawling kingsnake

Id: XiW3oPv1vZc

Length: 77min 13sec (4633 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021