zaterdag 5 februari 2011

Robert Belfour (Holly Springs, Mississippi)

Robert Belfour was born in 1940 in the middle of Mississippi Hill Country. It took him 59 years to get his first record released. Hill Country, as opposed to the Delta, is rough terrain where the poor survive by share cropping.
The music played there is by nature a rough and rural blues. Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside and Otah Turner's Fife and Drum Band all hail from the same area and they all got discovered in their later lives.
Otah saw his first record hitting the market when he was 90. The fife is is a  flute made out of cane.

Now Robert Belfour's father taught him to play the resonator guitar when not working out in the fields. He finally moved to Memphis where he worked construction for 35 years. But he didn't leave his music behind.
He has a unique style of playing combined with a deep booming voice. On all tracks you'll just hear his voice and guitar sometime a lone drummer.



Belfour may not be the biggest name out of the lot but  right now I think he's better than either Burnside or Kimbrough.


From 1996 onwards young white kids who lived among their black heroes took the tradition of Hill Stomp further and electrified it. The North Mississippi Allstars and brother band Hill Country Revue have been preaching their music the world over.

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