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

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

3×3: RL Boyce on Fred McDowell, Feather Pillows, and Fruits as Vegetables

Artist: RL Boyce
Hometown: Como, Mississippi
Latest Album: Roll and Tumble
Personal Nicknames: No. Nobody done called me nothing but R.L. except my children, they calls me daddy, and my grandchildren, they calls me granddaddy.

What’s the best concert you’ve ever attended?

Either watching Mississippi Fred McDowell (we called him “Shake ‘Em Down” ) or Rural (RL) Burnside.

How many unread emails or texts currently fill your inbox?

You gots to send those things to my daughter’s phone and she can show ’em to me.

How many pillows do you sleep with?

Just the one. It’s a feather pillow.

How many pairs of shoes do you own?

Right now, three. I got a pair of loafers, a pair of dress shoes, and a pair of house slippers.

If you were going to buy a famous musician’s pair of dirty socks off of eBay, whose would you buy?

I don’t know eBay. Who is she?

What’s your favorite vegetable?

That would be tomatoes. Somebody told me they was a fruit, but I call ’em a vegatable.

Fate or free will?

I believe a man’s gonna do what a man’s gonna do.

Sweet or sour?

Don’t reckon I like neither. I like my food natural tastin’.

Sunrise or sunset?

Sunset. That’s when the party starts.