Growing up in a house filled with music, Garry Burnside absorbed the sounds and rhythms of the Mississippi hill country from an early age. “It was good because, you know, you had a lot of music that you can learn from just right there in the house,” he says, recalling the influence of his father, RL Burnside, and the circle of musicians who frequently visited.
Exposure to artists like T-Model Ford, Robert Belfour, Paul “Wine” Jones, and his father’s contemporaries taught him both the craft and the respect central to the blues. “We learned respect and everything, because they all were older guys,” he says. “You see what they went through. They made it at the time that they were coming up, way harder than we had it coming up.”
Hill Country blues, he explains, prioritizes feel and rhythm over formal structure. “It’s the feeling they get, like they might hold that one a full round before they change,” he says. Garry has taken that tradition and fused it with his own style, which he calls “funk Hill Country.”
“I like funky music, man. I put my style, my generation, with my dad. So, it’s a different kind of funk it up,” he says, adding that elements of New Orleans-style grooves and house session accents appear in his recordings.
Though playing alongside his father was sometimes limited—“We didn’t play a lot because he didn’t have a bass player. But we all went out, we all jammed together. It was fun”—Garry cherishes those experiences. He sees carrying the Burnside name as a shared responsibility, rather than a pressure. “It’s really ain’t no pressure on me, because we are all family. I push for all of us to go one way to do it, regardless if we are playing together or not,” he says.
Songwriting for Garry is both personal and generational. He writes about what he knows and observes, capturing contemporary experiences alongside timeless blues narratives. “I write for somebody else; you never know how that song might help a person or whatever,” he says. At the same time, he follows younger musicians in the scene, noting how they adapt and expand the tradition. “A lot of young people pick up the blues now and take it that way,” he says.
Long a steady supporting musician, as a bass player and guitarist, Garry recently released his solo debut, It’s My Time Now (2025), on Strolling Bones Records. Recorded at Royal Studios with GRAMMY winner Boo Mitchell, the album showcases his raw guitar work, soulful vocals, and deep Southern grooves, blending Blues, Rock, and Funk. A former protégé of Junior Kimbrough and collaborator with the North Mississippi Allstars and Cedric Burnside, Garry uses this album as both a tribute to his roots and a statement of his own musical identity.
Music, for Garry, is also about independence and exploration. “I kind of like traveling and going downtown and doing your own thing, kind of being your own boss,” he says. Even while continuing to learn (he cites the bass as his favorite instrument), he remains connected to the community that shaped him. “You see all them coming up… we’re fortunate, though. My nephew and I got to see a lot of stuff that a lot of young musicians see now,” he says.
Ultimately, Garry Burnside’s approach is about continuity and balance: honoring the legacy of the Burnside family and the hill country blues while shaping a sound that reflects his generation. “Keep it going. Keep it going—to the next generation, to the city. That’s good enough,” he says.
