R.I.P. R.L.

There’s a lot of misery going down outside the walls of Nightmare Town and my thoughts go out to the people suffering in the Gulf Coast. To add to the pain, blues musician R.L. Burnside died yesterday in Memphis. Burnside recorded for the splendid and essential Fat Possum label out of Oxford, Mississippi, and his CDs—especially Too Bad Jim—are faves around my home. If you’ve never had the pleasure of grooving to one of Burnside’s “primitive” blues sounds, run out and pick one up, grab a six-pack, and salute one of the last of the real bluesmen. And while you’re at it . . . donate some green to the relief effort to help those poor souls down yonder. We all gotta do our part, comrades.