Come On In by R L Burnside

Come On In, released by Fat Possum in 1998, took R.L. Burnside's raw blues and ran it through the remix machine, and the old man himself wasn't sure about it at first. Tom Rothrock produced most of it, chopping and looping Burnside's guitar over beats and electronic textures until the juke joint and the dance floor share one sweaty room.

It sounds like it shouldn't work, and critics said as much about the odd pairing, but they loved it anyway, and so did buyers: in early 1999 it was the biggest seller Epitaph had in distribution. Burnside came round to it as well and kept chasing that sound on later records. It arrived a few years after his work with Jon Spencer had won him fans among punk and garage rock kids, and "Let My Baby Ride" shows why they stuck around: a hypnotic, stomping groove that refuses to let go.

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