Duwayne Burnside

After a nice long weekend in Dallas and a few days in New Orleans packing up some of what remains of our life there (and making a special trip to Louisiana Music Factory for some good New Orleans music), we were North Mississippi-bound again.


Four years ago, the Hollowells started building Foxfire Ranch on their property in Waterford, Mississippi. "A great place for a gathering," the sign says at the turnoff from Route 7 to Hamilton Chapel Road. It is lettered in red on a white background, a horse cantering in the center. As you get closer to the house, the signs become more bluesy. Finally there is a sly looking dark blue fox and the words, "Hill Country Blues" with an arrow pointing to the pavilion on a yard sign.

They host Sunday blues shows every weekend. As Annette says, "it is like the old juke joints, except you don't have to worry about knife fights." It seems the most they have to worry about is an old broke blues man trying to talk his way in and drink and eat barbecue for free. Many of them are heirs to the fathers of Hill Country blues - R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough.

My last couple visits to Annette's parents have involved one of R.L.'s son's - Duwayne Burnside. Turns out he is about 45 years old. Yesterday he came through Foxfire with a young white girl who couldn't have been more than 19 and their 3 or 4 month old baby - Duwayne Burnside, Jr., III. No, that's not a typo. Presumably, there is another son of Duwayne's somewhere who is Duwayne Burnside, Jr., the second. I didn't prod for details, so my imagination filled in the gaps.

When I first met Duwayne, it was at the Hill Country Picnic in 2008 on Flick Ash's farm in Potts Camp, Mississippi. He tilted his head to the side and looked at the ground when he played his guitar. His eyes seemed cloudy. It seemed like he was possessed, perhaps with the assistance of herion or some sort of PCP. The way he looked and talked at Annette left me with the impression that he was a dirty old blues man. Stories about how the Burnside clan fights over what little is left of R.L.'s royalties only fed my distaste for Duwayne.

That Christmas of 2008 when my father-in-law was just starting moving Foxfire from family reunions to blues concerts, we bought him a guitar. It was nothing special, used, a black and white Fender Squire. But it was enough for him to learn on.

When we visited this past May, he told us Duwayne Burnside had opened the Burnside Cafe on Highway 310, about a mile down the road from Foxfire. He got a call one afternoon while we were there from Duwayne, asking him to swing by later that evening. "And Bill, can I borrow your guitar for a little while?" Bill Hollowell obliged.

About 9 o'clock that Friday night, Bill, Annie, Annette and I went the back way down Old Oxford Road to Highway 310. There was a marquis sign by the driveway, lit up with an arrow pointing up the road. No letters or words were anywhere to be found. There were three or four cars parked next to a metal building. We parked on the grass.

The four of us walked in to find a bar with seven stools, six of which were occupied. There was a fridge with a 30 pack of Budweiser in it and a hot plate on the counter behind the bar. People were gathered on both sides of the bar, drinking beer and corn liquor out of a Boone's Farms wine bottle. Duwayne was in the midst of a heated conversation with some of the older guys at the bar. So I was greeted by Driftwood. He's the only other white guy in the place and Duwayne's "business partner" in this endeavor, or so I am told. He is wearing a dirty white t-shirt with sleeves cut off and has a bit of a mullet.

After we get a few three-dollar Budweisers, I check out the rest of the place. There are two pool tables. One looks broken down, legs uneven, some rough spots on the felt, stains all over. And the second one isn't exactly brand new. There are booths on the walls. Two on one side before a door opens up to a storage shed. About four on the other side, faded orange benches and stained tables. All of it has five years of dust. A few chairs speckle the middle of the room. At the other end, under a working disco ball, is a drum set, a bass, two amps, and no guitar.

Annette and I start up a game of pool, after finding the wall of the table removed to access the balls with out paying fifty cents. Meanwhile, Bill gets his guitar to Duwayne. The band goes to the front and slowly each band member starts tinkering with his instrument. The drummer could sleep comfortably inside the bass drum. He is maybe 5 foot 2, 125 pounds. The bassist makes up for it.  He is 6 foot 2 and at least 220 pounds or so. He is a stately guy with a commanding presence. He is clean cut with new carpenter jeans and a collared shirt. They call him Pinky. And then there's Duwayne. When he plugs in the guitar, he gets a childish grin on his face from the time he starts tuning it. The glow lasts even after he puts the guitar down. He starts playing a riff and the bass and drums follow.

They stop midway through the song several times. Duwayne keeps insisting for a funkier drum beat at one transition. After several stops and starts for about ten minutes, the drum finds that funky beat. It is clear to everybody in the room that Duwayne's musical vision is brilliant, despite his cloudy eyes. Everybody, that is, except the folks at the bar, who are now distracted by rising tempers and voices. Apparently Driftwood, now quite drunk, is offended by a not-so-gentleman who refuses to pay three dollars for a Budweiser - at least not without giving drunken Driftwood a hard time about it. Duwayne shouts incomprehensibly at both of them and they tone it down.

Bill, Annie, Annette and I dust off a booth near the band and set to playing spades with a deck of cards we brought. We are a safe distance from the riff raff and close enough to the band to hear Duwayne sing, even though he doesn't have a microphone.

That evening and well through the weekend, we make fun of Bill Hollowell for lending out his guitar, prophesizing that he won't ever get it back.

When we came back three weeks later after our roadtrip West, I was surprised to find the guitar perched comfortably in the corner of the Hollowell's living room.

This Sunday's line up was the Davide House Band - Southern rock and blues. They opened and closed with Lynyrd Skynrd. House is an overweight baby-faced 21-year-old who looks like he spends his days bailing hay. He's got tattoos on both arms and a wardrobe of t-shirts with sleeves cut off. One leg of his jeans is half-tucked into his cowboy boots. He started the show in a white Holly Springs t-shirt on lead guitar and ended it in a red t-shirt on rhythm guitar. They call him De De.

Duwayne by that point was on lead guitar. In fact, by that point, Duwayne's three-man band had taken over the stage, the Davide House band's instruments, even their lighting set up. De De, however, was allowed to stay on stage. But he gave up his white Les Paul with a wah pedal to Duwayne, while his friend/uncle/sometimes back up singer videoed the whole thing with his iPhone. Apparently, Duwayne is De De's idol. Word is Duwayne just got back that day from the Chicago Blues Festival, where, according to Driftwood and a few others, he wowed the crowd. And he is doing just that again at Foxfire. Everybody is on their feet dancing. And that childish grin is back on his face as he holds some high guitar notes and mumbles Dust My Broom into the microphone.

The moral of this story: If you run a blues joint, it just may pay to lend a Burnside blues man your guitar.

Duwayne Burnside and just about anybody who is anybody is playing next weekend (June 24th and 25th) at the Hill Country Picnic, which for the first time, will be at Foxfire Ranch. That will be our last weekend in the South and you are all invited for the party of the summer! Details can be found at: www.northmississippihillcountrypicnic.blogspot.com