The official credit tells it like it is. “Recorded in an old building in Ripley, Mississippi” – that’s all the info we get, and all that we need. When Cedric Burnside prepared to record Hill Country Love, the follow-up to his 2021 Grammy-winning album I Be Trying, he set up shop in a former legal office located in a row of structures in the seat of Tippah County, a town with 5,000 residents that’s known as the birthplace of the Hill Country Blues style. “That building was actually going to be my juke joint. Everything was made out of wood, which made the sound resonate like a big wooden box,” said Burnside. He called up producer Luther Dickinson (co-founder of the acclaimed North Mississippi Allstars and the son of legendary Memphis producer/musician Jim Dickinson), who brought recording equipment into the empty space. “We recorded in the middle of a bunch of rubbish – wood everywhere and garbage cans,” Burnside says. “We just laid everything out the way and recorded the album right there.” The 14 songs on the record were finished in two days, but in addition to being satisfied with the sound, Burnside believes that Hill Country Love represents real creative progress. “Every time I write an album, it’s always different,” he says. “I’m always looking to express myself a little bit better than I did on the last one and talk about more things happen in my life. I think that every day that you’re able to open your eyes, life is gonna throw you something to write about and to talk about. “So on this album,” he continues, “I’m a little bit more upfront and direct, because I went through some crazy feelings with family and with friends. Winning the Grammy was awesome, but people tend to treat you a little different when things like that happen.” Certainly, plenty of things have happened in Cedric Burnside’s life since he went on the road at age 13, drumming for his grandfather, the pioneering bluesman R.L. Burnside. His two albums before I Be Trying – 2015’s Descendants of Hill Country and 2018’s Benton County Relic – were both nominated for Grammys. He has also appeared in several films, including Tempted and Big Bad Love (both released in 2001) and the 2006 hit Black Snake Moan, and he played the title character in 2021’s Texas Red. Burnside is a recipient of a National Heritage Fellowship, the country’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts and was recently recognized with the 2024 Mississippi Governor’s Art Award for Excellence in Music. He has performed and recorded with such diverse musicians as Jimmy Buffett, Bobby Rush, and Widespread Panic. Yet as the title of the new album indicates, Burnside has never strayed far from the distinctive blues style introduced to the world by his “Big Daddy” R.L. and such other greats as Junior Kimbrough, Jessie Mae Hemphill, and Otha Turner. “I’ve been traveling my whole life, and the song ‘Hill Country Love’ gave me a chance to let people know that I love what I do and give a sense of how we do it in Mississippi – like, the house party is a tradition here, Big Daddy threw a lot of them. So that’s what I was thinking about as I was writing that song – where I come from and also where I’m going, and how my journey has been to get to where I’m at now.” Another song, “Juke Joint,” pays tribute to the local nightlife institutions that were central to Burnside’s growth both personally and musically. “The juke joint was a big part of my life,” he says. “I didn’t go to church, the juke joint was my church, and the juke joint was my school. I was there all the time, from 10 years old until I was grown.” At the same time, Burnside sees himself as an inheritor, not an imitator, of his native region’s blues style. “Big Daddy’s music, Junior’s music, Mister Otha’s music – my music is similar to theirs, but I’m a younger generation,” he says. “Whether we want to or not, we move on, and so my music will automatically sound a little more modern. But even if I tried to sound really modern, that old feel and old sound is just there. You might hear a song and think. ‘Wow, that sounds like it was recorded in 1959.’ I like that, but it’s really just me growing up around it and falling in love with that sound.” The album displays rock, R&B, and hip-hop elements, a range of sounds and emotions, from the self-explanatory instrumental “Get Funky” to the harsh truths of “Toll on your Life” and “Coming Real to You.” The most familiar composition is Burnside’s version of Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “You Gotta Move,” popularized by the Rolling Stones but often performed by Burnside’s grandfather at his Holly Springs farm. “He would get off the tractor and go sit on the porch and play for a couple hours, drink a little moonshine, and then go back to the tractor,” says Burnside, “and that’s one of the songs that I always loved to hear him play.” Many have drawn parallels between the polyrhythmic, droning sound of the Hill Country style, with its unpredictable chord progressions and bar counts, to West African music; that link is most obvious on the extended guitar introduction to “Love You Music.” But Burnside never really heard music from that part of the world until a few years ago, when a friend born in Gambia played him a record by Malian artist Ali Farka Toure. “I thought it was some old, underground Junior Kimbrough,” he says. “I was like, ‘Wow, man, I wonder do the Kimbrough family know about this?’ And then he started singing and my friend just started laughing!” With “Closer,” Burnside strives for spiritual redemption; “I fall short on you, Lord, on some days/Please forgive me Lord, every day I pray,” he sings. “That song really resonates to me,” he says. “When I was writing it, I didn’t just think about myself, I thought about everybody in the world, and getting closer to God. Every day you wake up, life is challenging, and it throws you all kinds of curveballs. Your faith is tested every day – that line is actually in the song, and I know people can relate to that as I can.” To Cedric Burnside, Hill Country Love is a culmination of a career that’s already seen astonishing accomplishments and only keeps growing. What he wanted this time out was a real sense of honesty and integrity. “I compromised a little bit with my albums in the past,” he says, “and I didn’t really have to compromise with this one, because I did it by myself. I paid for the engineer, paid for the musicians, I didn’t have a record company there. We just went to play music, and how it came out was how it came out – and it came out great. “I have to be true to where I’m coming from,” he continues. “On this album, the feeling that I had was like, I’m going to write what I feel, I’m going to write what’s going on. Life gives you good and life gives you bad and you have to cope with it however you need to cope with it. My way of coping with things is through my music, so I thank the Lord for music. I really do.”

GravelRoad release ninth album DUTY TO WARN, continue European and US touring Full-blown ambassadors of the blues, Seattle's own GravelRoad are sending another charge into their beloved Mississippi Delta source material with a ninth release, a Jack Endino-engineered blues rocker DUTY TO WARN. On their ninth album, DUTY TO WARN explores GravelRoad's well-earned weaving guitar interplay-earned with tens of thousands of miles of touring through the US and Europe in support of their last eight albums over 20 years. Truly, GravelRoad are a confident, masterful institution of guitar-driven blues with a passion for the heavy back beat and storytelling. This is the band's fourth release with co-conspirator Jack Endino, with the rock institution helming engineering, mixing and mastering duties. Endino also worked with the band on CROOKED NATION (2019), CAPITOL HILL COUNTRY BLUES (2016) and EL SCUERPO (2014). While maintaining a base with gigs at Tractor Tavern, Sunset, Slim's Last Chance and The Funhouse, GravelRoad has continued to pile up the frequent flier points, touring Europe and the US consistently for the last decade. The band's songs are featured in the TV shows POWER ("Monkey with a Wig" Season 5 epi 3); ARROW ("The Run" epi 512); BLOODLINE ("The Run" epi 302), THE AFFAIR ("Bring Me Back" epi 104) among other movie and TV show appearances. Like earlier proselytizers Canned Heat and Mike Bloomfield, GravelRoad apprenticed the genre, traveling to their beloved Hill Country section of Mississippi and helping their good friend T-Model Ford (James Lewis Carter Ford) tour the US, performing as his band at ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES, among other festivals. With T-Model, GravelRoad recorded the outstanding TALEDRAGGER (Alive Natural Sound 2011) and LADIES MAN (2010), masterful performances captured to vinyl to preserve the legacy of one of the great characters of the blues. The band continues pushing into new territory, but their legacy of documenting and supporting this unique American folk art continues. The band maintains a presence in Mississippi, appearing regularly at blues festivals including the Deep Blues Festival in Clarksdale, Mississippi. with DUTY TO WARN, and their accompanying US and European tour, GravelRoad continue to record, tour, and bring it where it needs to be brought, celebrating the guitar, the beat, the joy and the groove.

A singer’s talent is complete when they can bring a crowded dive bar to a collective hush and also get one of the biggest audiences on the planet to a collective standing ovation. Stephanie Anne Johnson is that special singer. The front person for the Tacoma-based band, The Hidogs, can don a cowboy hat and sing over a slide as old timers weep. And they have wowed judges on the immensely popular NBC TV series, The Voice, showcasing their gifts.   Perhaps it’s no surprise that Johnson is so affecting. Their mantra, after all, is “Find your joy and go there.” Their prowess exudes whether they are singing the Black national anthem - “Lift Every Voice And Sing” - to a packed auditorium or whether they're cooing acoustic lullabies to Saturday night tavern regulars. Their music, which is rooted in all that’s American, expresses the pain of the past, the roots of the down home and the hope that hard work will lead to proper reward.   The Hidogs, which is comprised of dynamic drummer Arturo Ortega Marcos, pocket-perfect bassist Jesse Turcotte and the prolific Johnson, is a nimble trio equal parts capable of shaking the shingles off a rooftop as making any stage feel like a Sunday service. The group’s latest LP, Take This Love, is a blend of Loretta Lynn and Valerie June. It’s a stunning catalogue of surprise and satisfaction. Stephanie Anne Johnson has opened for acts that include political figure Bernie Sanders, and artists such as Mavis Staples, Chaka Khan, Ani DiFranco, Cedric Burnside, and Black Joe Lewis