R.L. Burnside

Chaos, chance, charm and luck are a primary blues paradigm, of course, and a late twentieth-century scientific paradigm as well. The Chaos Theory of post-relativity physics tell us of Strange Attractors – inexplicable higher-order functions that provide a kind of boundary or shape or structural dynamic for chaos systems – and this model fits R.L’s music as well. The essential character of R.L,’s blues is chaos-on-wheels; it rocks as hard as any music on the planet while spreading sonic waves of sex and mayhem far and wide. But it is grounded in an implicit order: the rhythmic and melodic deep structures of North Mississippi blues.