Burnside carries on family’s tradition

• By JOHN WIRT
• music critic
• Published: Oct 10, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Born to the blues, Cedric Burnside has a famous last name. The 29-year-old singer, songwriter and drummer is the grandson of R.L. Burnside, a defining figure in north Mississippi’s hill country blues.

Cedric Burnside performed in juke joints with his grandfather when he was just 10. In the early ’90s, he began touring with R.L. Burnside and guitarist Kenny Brown. 

“So that’s where my heart’s at, man, that low down dirty raw blues,” Burnside said this week from his home in Hickory Flat, Miss.
A heart attack sidelined R.L. Burnside in 2004. He died the following year, but his influence on his musical children and grandchildren was well established by then.

“When I was coming up,” Cedric Burnside said, “I wouldn’t say he sat me down and said, ‘Here, Cedric, this how you do this on the drums.’ He just always encouraged me to don’t quit, keep it up.”

Burnside learned to play by being around his grandfather and friends such as Junior Kimbrough, another hill country blues patriarch.

“Drums is something I always wanted to do,” he said. “I banged around on buckets and tables when I was around home, driving my mom crazy.

“And my granddad and them used to have house parties, sit around and jam on the weekends. He played the guitar and some of his friends blew harmonica, but the drums just be sitting there. So I’d jump on them and do my thing.”

 Performing with Burnside Explosion, featuring his guitar-playing uncles, made a deep impression on Burnside’s drumming, too.

“Some of my uncles, they always would say, ‘Man, you gotta do better than that. That ain’t go’ cut it. You got to come stronger than that.’ It made me so mad, because I was trying my best. In my eyes, I was doing real good. So I’d get on the drums and try to bust holes in them.”

Angry though Burnside was when his uncles criticized him, he’s grateful now for what turned out to be constructive criticism.
“It was fuel to the fire, because I grew up playing stronger drums,” he said.

Having performed with his grandfather as a duo and in a trio format, Burnside’s two-year-old duo partnership with singer-guitarist Steve “Lightnin’ ” Malcolm is a natural.

“Malcolm, he’s been playing music all his life, and I’ve pretty much been playing music all my life,” Burnside said.

The two of them have no trouble sounding like a full band.