The Beginning and End of All Music

JUNIOR KIMBROUGH is providing the soundtrack as I prepare for work this morning. Kimbrough (1930-98) was one of the Mississippi Hill Country blues performers unearthed and recorded by Fat Possum Records.
The other day I enjoyed watching Mandy Stein's 2002 documentary "You See Me Laughin'" -- which serves as an introduction to such Hill Country musicians as RL Burnside, Cedell Davis, T-Model Ford and Kimbrough.
Kimbrough didn't release his first album until 1992, when he was 62 years old.
I love the idea that remarkably talented individuals could be hidden in shacks somewhere in the woods. They become the musical treasure sought by curious treasure hunters.
Musicologists trace the distinctive nature of the Hill Country music to the relative isolation of the rural area.
Indeed, Kimbrough's music differs from the concise, under-three-minute songs that most people associate with electrified blues. Kimbrough's music is often marked by a sprawling drone, a sound music writer Robert Palmer described as "hypnotic." Many of the songs extend to seven minutes or more.
Rockabilly legend Charlie Feathers, a childhood friend of Kimbrough's, once called the bluesman's work "the beginning and end of all music."
Those fitting words now mark the back of Kimbrough's tombstone.