Mississippi Hill Country blues guitarist and singer-songwriter Cedric Burnside contains within him the legacy and future of the region’s prescient sound stories. At once African and American and southern and Mississippian, these stories tell about love, hurt, connection, and redemption in the South. His newest contribution to this tradition is ‘I Be Trying,’ a 13-track album treatise on life’s challenges, pleasures, and beauty. “Life can go any kind of way,” Burnside says. With almost 30 years of performing and living blues in him, he would know.

Burnside was born in the blues as much as he was in funk, rock, soul, and hip-hop. These latter sensibilities are reflected across his work, as he drives Hill Country blues into grooves that lend themselves readily to an urgent, modern moment. But he is also keenly his grandfather’s grandson. Burnside studied the music of the elder Burnside blues man, hill country blues luminary RL Burnside, so carefully over a decade playing with him that he came to know him better than his own self. By age 13, he was on the road with his “Big Daddy” Burnside, playing drums, being raised up by the music and the road, and developing the next, electric generation of the Hill Country calling and sound.

Burnside has earned three Grammy nominations, including for 2015’s ‘Descendants of Hill Country’ and 2018’s ‘Benton County Relic,‘ which were both capstone statements for a lifetime of musical labor channeling the blues spirit on drums, guitar, and vocals in the North Mississippi Hill Country tradition. Burnside’s ‘I Be Trying,’ his second release with Alabama’s Single Lock Records, earned him the Grammy award for Best Traditional Blues Album. This album pushes just beyond his long-time roles as Hill Country blues collaborator, torchbearer, and innovator into the rooms of the artist’s inner life. Written in reflection on and off the road in 2018, the album responds to the confusion and anger he felt in the years after a series of deaths in the family and a host of other interpersonal hurts, some he dished out and some he took.

Burnside’s turn inward has him considering his place in the family legacy of professional blues musicians. He is a proud father of three daughters, ages 22, 18, and 15, all of whom can play drums and guitar, and is looking forward to more collaborations like the one with the youngest Burnside daughter on “I Be Trying.” Striving for transparency with his children about his own life, he lets them know not to be too hard on themselves. He says Big Daddy always took care of his family, including his 13 children and several grandchildren and great grandchildren. Despite his touring schedule, Burnside is deeply grateful for his capacity to support and be present for his own children. About this, he says, “I have been there, and I will be there.” That’s for certain about the past, present, and future of the North Mississippi Hill Country blues, too.