David "Junior" Kimbrough, was a master of the North Mississippi hill country blues style, which he affectionately called "cotton patch blues." His music was characterized by a raw, hypnotic quality, relying on modal, repetitive riffs rather than the traditional 12-bar blues progressions.
Junior gained international attention in 1992 when he was featured in Robert Mugge’s documentary 'Deep Blues'.
He recorded his debut album, 'All Night Long', at his juke joint, Junior’s Place, in Chulahoma, Mississippi. Junior’s Place drew both University of Mississippi students and international blues fans. His Fat Possum albums, featuring his signature riff-based songs with minimal chord changes and droning bass lines also resonated with fans of alternative music. Artists like the North Mississippi Allstars, the Black Keys, Iggy Pop, and Daft Punk covered his music.
Junior died of a heart attack following a stroke in 1998 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, at the age of 67.
The back of Junior's headstone bears the memorable quote from rockabilly legend (and friend of Junior's) Charlie Feathers, "Junior Kimbrough is the beginning and end of all music".
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Junior Kimbrough was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame by The Blues Foundation in 2023 at the 44th Annual Blues Music Awards.
A Mississippi Blues Trail marker honoring Junior Kimbrough was unveiled on February 21, 2024, in Holly Springs, Mississippi, along with a marker for R.L. Burnside. The marker is located in Blues Alley, near 125 N. Center Street, and acknowledges Kimbrough's significant contribution to Hill Country Blues.
Today's freeload is three of Junior's albums
'All Night Long' from 1992
'Most Things Haven't Worked Out' from 1997
I love Junior's epitaph, "Junior Kimbrough is the beginning and end of all music".
Strictly speaking, an epitaph refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. So for the freeload, who (dead or alive) would you choose to write your epitaph?
Wim Brandts
ReplyDeleteHe was a poet. Some of his greatest gifts were the poems and words he spoke for people who were buried without anyone having claimed the body. And nobody turning up at the funeral.The loneliest of loneliest of the dead.
Figuratively, Warren Zevon. I didn't know him, he never knew me, but the guy had a way with words, ideas, thoughts & music too. IRL, not necessary. Thanks Babs
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteTom Liwa, singer of the Flowerpornoes. Kindly regards, Mike
Anon RF: "Now I've Seen Everything"
ReplyDeleteOops, misread it. I'm thinking Ray Davies.
DeleteMy epitaph for someone who's still alive:
ReplyDeleteHe grifted
He lied
He molested
He vandalized
Yet he won
…at least for a time
who would I choose to write my epitaph? If my wife goes first, whoever finds me. I suspect it would mention the smell that had them call the cops?
ReplyDeleteI'd go with wisecracker extraordinaire, Dorothy Parker, or maybe Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
ReplyDeleteParker would be impossibly clever & Vonnegut undoubtedly cryptic, but great choices; Parker seems spot on. Id the women to whom I am married is unavailable--she is an amazing writer with a way with words--I'd go Walter Benjamin, speaking of cryptic, but we do seem to be vaguely related (he says wishfully....?). Mencken knew his way around words. Hunter Thompson woulda been funny. Hmmm. All dead as doornails.
ReplyDeleteAmanda Gorman. She's pretty amazing.
Christopher John Brennan. I even know the quotations I'd like.
ReplyDelete"I am the wanderer of the ways of all the worlds,
to whom the sunshine and the rain are one
and one to stay or hasten, because he knows
no ending of the way, no home, no goal,
and phantom night and the grey day alike
withhold the heart where all my dreams and days
might faint in soft fire and delicious death:
and saying this to myself as a simple thing
I feel a peace fall in the heart of the winds
and a clear dusk settle, somewhere, far in me"
Free your mind & your ass will follow, the Kingdom Of Heaven lies within.
ReplyDeleteFunkadelic
To fathom hell or to soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic.
Unknown
and of course
Space Is The Place
Sun Ra
Submitted by Reverend Doctor Baz
Chaplain : The Cosmonauts Of Inner Space
Out of my head on Cope & Reed.
While we saw, you lived this day.
ReplyDeleteTake care.
Rough day, today.
DeleteAttended a nonofficial remembrance, with friends and neighbors.
If Thelonius monk could dictate something, maybe something like this would result:
ReplyDelete"WIZUHHWOOZDUHINNIT CEPTIONUHLLHUH MMMH?"
Aaaarghn-shmu-zibble-flum!
DeleteStraight Outta Straight, No Chaser!
DeleteI don't want no headstone on my grave.
ReplyDeleteTrivia: There is a used & new vinyl shop on the Oxford (Mississippi) Square called "The End of All Music."
Link
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/PgMzFa8RQeb
Mark Twain can write my epitaph!
ReplyDelete