Cedric Burnside Australian Tour 2022
Cedric Burnside
Australian Tour
March 2022
Cedric Burnside returns to Australia (thanks to the folks at Love Police Touring) for the fourth time and this trip follows his third Grammy nomination – a Best Traditional Blues Album nod for this year’s I Be Trying, which he recorded at Royal Studios in Memphis, where Al Green cut his classic sides for Hi Records in the 60s and 70s.
Cedric Burnside is blues royalty. The grandson and longtime drummer of the late great RL Burnside, he carries the mantle of Mississippi Hill Country blues – with its commitment to polyrhythmic percussion and its refusal of familiar blues chord progressions – to new audiences around the world. These days predominantly a guitarist, Cedric plays stripped back blues. Listening Through The Lens caught him at the Rockweave Music and Arts Festival in LaGrange Georgia in 2019 (somewhat sadly our last US festival before you-know-what). A remarkably authentic performance.
His latest contribution is I Be Trying, a thirteen-track album treatise on life’s challenges, pleasures, and beauty. “Life can go any kind of way,” Burnside says. With almost thirty years of performing and living blues in him, he would know.
Burnside’s two Grammy-nominated album projects— the 2015 Descendants of Hill Country and 2018’s Benton County Relic—were both capstone statements for a lifetime of musical labour channeling the blues spirit on drums, guitar, and vocals in the North Mississippi Hill Country tradition. I Be Trying is another important milestone for Burnside.
Burnside’s turn inward has him considering his place in the family legacy of professional blues musicians. He is a proud father of three daughters, ages 22, 18, and 15, all of whom can play drums and guitar, and is looking forward to more collaborations like the one with the youngest Burnside daughter on “I Be Trying.” Striving for transparency with his children about his own life, he lets them know not to be too hard on themselves. He says Big Daddy always took care of his family, including his thirteen children and several grandchildren and great grandchildren. Despite his touring schedule, Burnside is deeply grateful for his capacity to support and be present for his own children. About this, he says, “I have been there, and I will be there.” That’s for certain about the past, present, and future of the North Mississippi Hill Country blues, too.
ADVERTISE WITH LISTENING THROUGH THE LENS
More Music Adventures Await!
***
Cedric Burnside Australian Tour 2022
