Blues singer R.L. Burnside is a burly man. The photo on the

inside of his fifth album, A Ass Pocket of Whiskey, shows

him wearing hunting clothes with his guitar surrounded by his big

body. Cradled in his hands, the instrument looks like some

unlucky animal he's just bagged in the woods. But it's not only

R.L.'s physical size that's burly. His voice, rich and deep,

conveys a certain aural weight as well. Even his guitar sound is

bulky, barreling straight ahead through the songs, knocking over

each one in succession with rhythmic drones rather than through nimble

soloing.

Burnside's partners on Ass Pocket include his own sideman

Kenny Brown on guitar, plus the members of the Jon Spencer Blues

Explosion. If you're keeping score, that's four guitar players:

Burnside, Brown, Spencer, and Judah Bauer (although Bauer

sometimes trades his git for the harp or Casio keyboard). With

that many folks on the axe, you might fear this record sounds

like Lynyrd Skynyrd or the Traveling Wilburys, but such is not

the case. This record is lean, despite the number of guitars and

the burliness of all things R.L. There's no fat on the album, at

least as far as the sound is concerned. Ass Pocket

reminds me of this basset hound I knew. He weighed 70 pounds,

but it was all muscle. In fact, he could knock you down with one

of his flying leaps, which he'd only do if he was really

happy.

That's probably what Spencer did to his friends when he found out

R.L. had agreed to make this record. While it's unfair to term

his performance obsequious, you can without a doubt hear

Spencer's excitement in the tracks, sometimes in his static-

filled playing, but more often in his vocal trade-offs with

Burnside. Listen to Spencer shout "Aaaoowww!" in perfect time

after R.L. tosses off threats in "The Criminal Inside Me"; his

respect for the master is almost palpable.

Burnside's specialty is the hill country blues of northern

Mississippi. Different from the better-known Delta sound, blues

from the hill country is more trance-inducing. A song may focus

on only one or two chords. Burnside has been

gradually gaining wider recognition for his craft since the

release of Bad Luck City on Fat Possum Records in 1993.

His music was featured in Robert Palmer's Deep Blues

documentary, and more recently Burnside has opened shows for

Spencer and the Blues Explosion. For their part, Spencer and the

Blues Ex have spent three albums filtering the whole of post-

World War II African-American music through their warped vision

of the blues, and they have another on the way this fall.

Earlier this year, Burnside and the Explosion got together for an

afternoon jam on a farm in Mississippi. From that single session

come all ten songs on A Ass Pocket of Whiskey.

Rock fans without much experience in the hill country sound

recognize it as distant kin to some of Neil Young's relentless

pursuits of particular riffs or single notes. Aside from the

drone, you'll find psychotic appearances from Bauer's Casio and

Spencer's Theremin, though these are saved for Ass

Pocket's final two tracks. Burnside's raw, rhyming storytelling,

however, makes

repeated appearances throughout the disc. Sometimes the tales

work to a humorous effect, while at others they're more suited

for just a single listen.

The spotty quality goes hand in hand with the spontaneity of the

session and album. Some of the tracks fade in,

while others, such as a cover of John Lee Hooker's "Boogie

Chillen," start in mid-stream. "2 Brothers" even contains

Burnside's call for another drink. "Well, well, WELL!" he says,

"I just run outta beer." After a brief pause, he says in typical

R.L. fashion, "Give me a little time to think / while you fix me

another motherfuckin' drink." "'Nother drink?" someone asks.

"Key-rect," says Burnside.

That is the essence of what is contained on A Ass Pocket of

Whiskey: one afternoon, a bunch of guys playing, their flaws

are in plain view, but of course, so are their victories. When I

first heard that Ass Pocket was being released, it was

described "as if the Stooges were backing up John Lee Hooker." I

don't know that this real album is as good as that idea, but then

again, heavyweight match-ups oftentimes have a difficulty living

up to their potential. (Ever heard Woke Up This Morning and

Found Myself Dead by Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison? Don't

bother seeking it out.)

About a year ago, I was trading email with Dave Marsh for a

fanzine I was doing called Campaign Shoutin'. In the

process, I mentioned Jon Spencer because the 'zine had a review

of the Blues Explosion's Orange. Dave's initial reply was

"Jon Spencer still a mystery to me, and I only own about a

thousand blues records." In an interview for C.S., Marsh

elaborated by saying that what he didn't like about Spencer was

"his lack of discernable musical talent, [and] his inability to

play without grandstanding or with anything approaching either

the formal requirements or the emotional rewards of blues music."

A Ass Pocket of Whiskey will probably do little to change

Marsh's opinion of Spencer. It will be a great album, however,

if it broadens the audience of R.L. Burnside to include Spencer's indie

rock fans, plenty of whom have likely never heard a living

bluesman as authentic as R.L.