Personnel: R.L. Burnside (vocals, guitar); Kenny Brown (guitar, slide guitar); Lester Butler (harmonica); Beal Dabbs (organ, clavinette, bass, programming); Alejandro Rosso (organ); Tom Rothrock (bass, programming); John Oreshnick (drums, maracas); Calvin Jackson, Joe Ranieri, Joey Waronker, Joe Rameri, Cedrick Burnside (drums).
Producers: Tom Rothrock, Beal Dabbs, Bob Corritore, Alec Empire.
Recorded at The Money Shot, Oxford, Mississippi; Studio 5, Studio 64, Atwater, California.
Along with labelmate Junior Kimbrough, Burnside can be credited with bringing back real, gutbucket blues to a public numbed by the Kenny Wayne Sheperds of the world. His raw, electric style fuses Chicago and Delta blues into an arresting, often hypnotic swirl. COME ON IN represents a summit between Burnside's traditionalism and the high-tech primitivism of the electronica generation. Essentially, it's Beck in reverse; instead of a post-modern electronics-tinged artists incorporating traditional blues influences, COME ON IN is a case of a hardcore bluesman allowing '90s technological advances to enter and even expand his musical world.
The simple, hard-hitting rhythms and hooky, repetitive guitar riffs that are the cornerstones of Burnside's style lend themselves quite naturally to the looping and sampling techniques that give COME ON IN it's eccentric, wild-card feel. Everything else in the pop world has been put through its remixing paces, why not blues? Ultimately, Burnsides vision is so singular and insistent, it dominates even the most loop-heavy tracks here, and the electronically altered structures of COME ON IN provide a fresh look at the tradition Burnside has been making his own for his whole life.
