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WATCH: R.L. Boyce, “Coal Black Mattie”

May 17, 2023

Artist: R.L. Boyce
Hometown: Como, Mississippi
Song: “Coal Black Mattie”
Album: Tell Everybody! 21st Century Juke Joint Blues
Release Date: August 11, 2023
Label: Easy Eye Sound

In Their Words: “I first heard Fred McDowell play [this Ranie Burnette song] when I was a teenager and it’s been one of my favorites ever since. There’s a lot of people that have done that song, but everybody got their own way of doing it, and I got my own way of doing it that don’t nobody else do. It’s one of them [songs] you can put whatever you want to in it.

“When I got there in the studio, they asked if I wanted to go over anything first. I said, ‘There ain’t nothing to go over. Let’s just sit down and get to it. I’ll play whatever comes to me.’ It’s always good to work with Kenny [Brown] and Eric Deaton. They from down my way, you know. [Dan Auerbach is] a cool dude and treated me very nice. I’m glad he asked me to come up to Nashville. He knows his blues, and once we started playing, he hung there with us pretty good.” – R.L. Boyce


Photo credit: Joshua Black Wilkins

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