The Blues Had A Grand Baby

The title is obviously a paraphrase of Muddy’s famous quote, “The Blues had a baby, and they named it Rock and Roll.”  That phrase kept rolling around my head last night as I listened to the Cedric Burnside Project.  If Rock and Roll is the baby of the Blues, then Rap and Hip Hop are the grandkids.  And they were on stage together last night at the Boulder Outlook.  To take the theme even further, Cedric and baby brother Cody are the grandsons of Blues legend, R. L. Burnside, and they offer up all kinds of proof of their lineage.

Cedric, or “Ced,” as his friends call him (and I’m now one!), is a triple threat: guitar, drums, and a voice that makes butter seem bitter.  The evening opened with the amazing one man wall of sound, John-Alex Mason, alone on guitar.  I’ve known John-Alex for a few years now, and yet this was the first time I’ve heard him alone on guitar.  He typically plays his solo gigs on guitar and drums simultaneously, creating the illusion of a full band, and with a voice that was made for singing the Blues.  I loved hearing him stripped down and raw last night.  And then he brought up a couple of friends.