Garry Burnside's IT'S MY TIME NOW and Kent Burnside's HILL COUNTRY BLOOD

Well, well, well—as R.L. would boom in his grinning Mississippi drawl.

Released simultaneously, Garry Burnside’s It’s My Time Now and Kent Burnside’s Hill Country Blood just opened both barrels for a double blast of north Mississippi blues. Not Delta blues from down in the cottony flatland to its south, where Charley Patton and Tommy Johnson to the Jelly Roll Kings and T-Model Ford did their best work. But Hill Country blues from up in the kudzu-choked highlands of Marshall, Tate and Panola Counties, where the almighty drone-and-groan groove was perfected by founding fathers like Mississippi Fred McDowell, Othar Turner, Junior Kimbrough—and R.L. Burnside.

Bloodlines run heavy there: Garry and Kent are descendants of the late R.L., one of his sons and grandsons, respectively. Both deliver distinct albums steeped in Hill Country tradition yet without pining for the past. Just as how R.L. hammered out his own way to make a guitar ‘shake ’em on down’ in order to gain elbow room from how McDowell taught him, so have these two electrified guitarists developed their own individual signatures. Their own Burnside style.

For decades, Garry’s basslines were integral to the spare but ultra-persuasive hypnosis that Kimbrough and his serpentine guitar worked inside a nondescript, rural shack of a juke joint, right off Highway 4 in the map-dot that is Chulahoma. Burnside’s sinuous shoving was likewise seminal to Junior’s records, including the landmark All Night Long and Sad Days, Lonely Nights. Other north Mississippians benefitted, too, including Jessie Mae Hemphill (Dare You to Do It Again) and the North Mississippi Allstars (Shake Hands with Shorty and World Boogie Is Coming).

Enough was enough, though.

After all those years of yeoman’s work as a vital sideman, Garry Burnside—newly signed to Strolling Bones Records—grabs hold of both his destiny and his guitar: It’s My Time Now is an all-hear-this rally cry, a fire-fisted declaration. These bold, wah-wah-flecked 49 minutes have zero chance of being mistaken for those of his father. Or any one of the region’s other past kingpins, for that matter.

Junior Kimbrough's juke joint (Courtesy of John Wegrzyn)

That’s indisputable, right from the get-go. Because “High” immediately turns heads, opens eyes and scorches walls. Also being an instrumental leadoff track puts all the more emphasis on the guitar, which fuses blues with rock energy and tone, then yanks everything tight before blending with a sly sense of funk. But not Junior Wells or even Johnny “Guitar” Watson funk. More like late-stage Hendrix funk, especially whenever the wah pedal gets punched, as when thickening and flaring out “Young Country Boy” or the heavier stepping title track.

Given the heads-down, straightforward band (no keys, no horns, no flab) and their pressurized vibe, you half-expect the revved-up Burnside to take a run at “Izabella” or something else tense and taut off the Band of Gypsys’ setlist.

But not this time. At least not today. Instead, the material is all Burnside. That includes his dad’s “Bad Luck City,” pulled from the Saturday night repertoire of the Sound Machine, R.L.’s contemporized family band that lit up jukes and house parties back in its day. Here, with lyrics stripped away to let the Fender do all the singing, the song redeploys as an atmospheric instrumental, a liquid meditation on six strings that retains the original’s R&B flair. “Ramblin’” is a cowrite with his then-boss, Kimbrough. Whereas Junior played “My Mind Is Rambling” as loping unease, Burnside’s version soups up as frantic restlessness. The nine other tracks, however, are Garry’s sole property.

Yet Garry needn’t always rely on locking riffs together; more than enough different ideas overflow from his fingers with lightning speed, pouring out notes freely and plentifully. The solos flickering inside “I Been Looking” as well as “Holdin’ My Woman” certainly vouch for that. “AGF Out”—burning fast and fleet, and swirled with wah-wah—is essentially a four-and-a-half-minute solo far, far removed from the prior generation’s “Shake ’Em on Down.” It’s My Time Now is what a fretsman newly launching his own brand sounds like.

Kent Burnside runs closer to the rawer Old World of his grandfather. The method of interlocking riffs to form rhythmic backbones, on which tales of sorrow and sex get hung, still applies. His mega-moody guitar, however, comes off as massive and carries quite the serrated bite. In dramatic contrast, his vocals keep stone-cold cool. The combination makes Hill Country Blood particularly striking.

And in true Hill Country fashion, minimalism rules; but a hulking minimalism that alternately ruminates and rages, slithers and stomps. The band—Garry’s bass, drums and occasional overhead harmonica—matches Kent in sound and fury. The back-to-back, festered-versus-frenzied pairing of “One More Chance” with “Rob and Steal” put those opposing tempers into play. “I Heard” is another slow, seething juggernaut, except that the guitar is clearly and constantly agitated, crackling above snare patter and even smearing its tone with a rare bit of wah-wah. Four-and-a-half minutes of writhing Epiphone roar.

On the other hand, “Crawling King Snake,” springboarding off Kimbrough’s reshaped arrangement rather than John Lee Hooker’s, kicks up a wild ruckus aiming to rip the roof off. And, still even now, the song feigns about wriggling reptiles. Love, instead, remains its theme, its goal—well, actually doing you know what. Four-and-a-half minutes of concerted bang.

Most of the 10 sharp-edged songs come from Burnside himself. “Hill Country Blood” embraces his roots and the region’s mystique. “I Can Feel It” pleads its carnal case. “You Better Run,” a staple that used to waft through the pressboard walls of Kimbrough’s palace on Sunday evenings, reactivates in full. “Daddy Told Me” digs down deepest. Lyrically, it’s an open wound that has yet to scar over, dredging up childhood ambitions of playing blues that nearly got squashed—and now capped off with bittersweet retribution. Musically, the guitar carries the entire downcast load on its own. Bare and jagged and full of pitfall drop-offs, its brooding offers no shelter from the devastating narrative above. Especially surprising is “I Miss You,” the subtly plucked acoustic finale whose sentiment well applies to his famous granddad. For all of the prior juking, this is where Kent shows he can, at will, do otherwise.

Both It’s My Time Now and Hill Country Blood come with an extra touch of mojo, having been produced, recorded and mixed at Royal Studios by Boo Mitchell, who did just the same for I Be Trying, 2022’s Grammy-winning Best Traditional Blues Album from another of R.L.’s grandsons, Cedric Burnside.

Between just Garry and Kent Burnside alone, the hills of north Mississippi will continue shaking for some time to come. Well, well, well, indeed.

Label: Strolling Bones

Release date: 8/15/25

Artists’ websites: Garry Burnside.com and Kent Burnside.com

Label website: Strolling Bones Records

Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski