The Great Blues Improvisor (To RL Boyce)

RL Boyce, August 15, 1955 - November 9, 2023

RL Boyce*

Where do I begin to talk about RL Boyce, the greatest improvisationalist of the Hill Country Blues sound? RL Boyce died yesterday morning peacefully in his home in Como, Mississippi after being diagnosed with lung cancer a few months ago. His was a late diagnosis, a diagnosis that the cancer had already spread throughout his body. Damn it, RL.

I first met RL Boyce at one of Otha Turner’s annual picnics. Luther Dickinson introduced me, as he introduced me to Otha…as he introduced me to the vibrant, living Hill Country scene of the 1990s that included RL Burnside and T-Model Ford. RL Boyce—the “other” RL—was part of Otha Turner’s Rising Star Fife and Drum Band…related to Otha in some way or another…keeping the beat with the drum slung over his shoulder, following the fife-master through the crowd. And when he was not playing the drum durring those starry picnic nights, he would wander around the crowded farm, with a guitar in his hand, trying to figure out a place where he could sit and play for the people, where he could overcome the sound of the set-up DJ, who would be blaring love-making soul music from the 1970s.

One of the earliest known pictures of RL Boyce “in a musical setting” playing with Napoleon Strickland (that is RL second on the left with the snare), 1970**

When RL did play, he had a specific riff that he would hang on for long periods of time…RL’s Boogie…he would just hang out there while singing whatever came to his mind…with a smile on his face, trying to catch the eyes of his crowd so he could nod along with them as if to say “Do you hear how great this music is that I’m playing? DO YOU!?” I never got to see Mississippi Fred McDowell play live…who was a neighbor of RL’s and a best friend to Otha…but RL’s performances seemed to construct a cosmic link from RL to Fred to even further back to artists like Furry Lewis and Bukka White. But his style was different than theirs, especially when it came to song structure. Instead of a standard song structure, RL was more like a free jazz artist, or better yet a drone-composer, swapping structure for an infinite groove—polyrhythmic beautiful-monotonous riffs and beats…improvising lyrics as he sang as Albert Ayler would improvise with his saxophone…not in the noisy sense, but in the fresh and alive sense of singing whatever it was that comes flowing through him, inspired by the moment. He would see friends walk past him and suddenly the song was about them, he would be telling a story between songs and launch into a song digging deeper into its plot.

RL and I got to be friends as the years went on, and Luther and I hatched the idea of recording him and releasing his record. We spent two days in Como in 2007…one, in front of his house, with Kevin Houston supermanly manning his remote studio…and the second at Jim Dickinson’s Zebra Ranch studio, with RL, Luther and Lightnin’ Malcom on guitars and Cedrick Burnside (RL Burnside’s grandson and drummer) and his father Calvin Jackson (Junior Kimbrough’s drummer) each playing a full drum kit (with special guests like Otha Turner’s grandchildren sitting in for a spell). For two days, RL joyously played through his songbook with this all-star space-is-the-place blues band, telling stories about his life, his family, his friends within the confines of his endless boogie jams. My label, Sutro Park Records, released just a few of tracks in 2013 on a record called Ain’t The Man’s Alright (which is available on bandcamp, and which is where you can listen to his music while reading these words).

Recording outside of RL’s house, 2007: Lightin’ Malcom, RL Boyce, Calvin Jackson, Luther Dickinson*

A few years later, other tracks from that session were licensed for a release called Roll and Tumble, which got RL international acclaim and a Grammy nomination. Finally, he seemed to be getting the recognition he deserved with more touring opportunities…nationally and internationally, more people understanding his unique, one-of-a-kind style of the blues. He even began his own yearly blues picnic where he no longer had to roam around, as he did at Otha’s, trying to find room to play his guitar. He was now the main event.

Throughout the last three decades, I would live for going down to Mississippi to see RL play. Whether it was asking him to put together a wang-dang-doodle, where he would gather all of his musical neighbors (often with a lot of members of the Burnside and Kimbrough clans) to sit on a porch and jam for an afternoon (with my 7 year old daughter holding his vocal mic), or getting him to set up outside Jane Rule Burdine’s house in Taylor, MS, and spending hours dancing under the moonlight to his always infectious beats. Time spent entranced in the musical world of RL Boyce was the best time.

It was just last month that I heard RL was sick. He had been actively playing shows as recently as last summer…but now was having a hard time catching his breath walking around his house. There were rumors that he had lung cancer, but he did not confirm them until then. This past week, I was in Mississippi co-producing Ethan Daniel Davidson’s record with my musical brother Luther Dickinson, back at Zebra Ranch Studios. Today’s Signal was going to be about that session. While we had a jam-packed 4-day session, with the hopes of doing basic tracks and most of the overdubs of 13 songs (which we did!), this past Wednesday I found a small window of time to meet my friend Jane Rule for lunch in Senatobia, and together visit RL to see how he was faring (thinking, based on texts from him, that he was still getting around).

Jane Rule and I pulled up to his house in Como, finding the door slightly ajar, with no answer coming from it as we knocked. As we turned to leave, his sister drove up, saying that he was in there, and to come in to say hello. RL was in bed, on a morphine drip, in and out of sleep, in the final stage of his time on this astral plane. He recognized both of us, told us he loved us. I told him he was the greatest…the greatest bluesman…just the greatest, and he gave me that smile…that same smile he gave when locking eyes while he was playing, showing off one of his signature guitar riffs as he rolled and tumbled.

Yesterday in the early morning, my friend, blues scholar Scott Barretta, texted to tell me that RL had passed away, so soon after we had seen him (I am still processing the fact that I happened to have that time on that day and got to his house at that moment that his sister pulled up). With his passing, we not only lost a beautiful soul (he had such a sweet, kind soul) and my dear friend, but a unique sound of the Hill Country Blues…my favorite blues, my favorite blues player.

In his lifetime, RL Boyce played with the best: with Otha Turner, with Napoleon Strickland, with Jessie Mae Hemphill…always keeping the driving beat (you can see his recording credits on discogs). But his best stuff was his solo stuff…when he was playing guitar and singing instantaneous poetry…picking that signature riff that he could play for forever.

Rest In Peace, RL Boyce. May your memory be a blessing.

Last time I saw RL, in Detroit at Ethan Davidson’s Birthday Party, with Dan Kroha of The Gories

*Photo by Jane Rule Burdine

**Photo by David Evans