You all know that Fat Possum is the Sun records of the early 20th Century—an insane asylum of purely batshit geniuses who are always in danger of driving off the road and taking you with them, like it or not. (If you don’t know this, I suggest you go learn.) And the college kids in Oxford know that R.L. Burnside is the guru of the whole lot, as inelegantly real as a fifty-dollar amp. However, to fully know a man’s blues, you have to take away his electricity, and this amazing field recording of Burnside in 1969—an aural snapshot of a young Mississippi sharecropper, armed with only an acoustic guitar, sharing his soul with no-one—is nothing short of revelation.

The excellent, award-worthy liner notes tell the story of how Adelphi Records hired Big Joe Williams to uncover raw talent like Burnside, but the music would tell you that regardless, as the aptly nicknamed “Rule” reduces the blues to its uncut form; one man, one guitar. Recorded mostly in Independence, Mississippi, and less so in Memphis, the Fred McDowell and Son Hibbler-influenced Burnside reels out the blues as fact: the ancient laments “Poor Boy” and “Hobo Blues” sitting perfectly next to R.L.’s classic originals, future staples like “Nine Days In Jail” and “Goin’ Down South.” No Jon Spencer here, no remixes, no regard for the outside world, just uncut feeling, a pure natural element as vital as the sweet smell of air coming off of the river, and just about as artificial. Calling Burnside a blues musician is like confusing a cow with a milk factory. He doesn’t make blues records, he makes blues. Right down in his skin, he makes it.