Belfour's music is characterized as Hill Country Blues. Other artists that exemplify this sound are Junior Kimborough, R.L. Burnside, Jessie Mae Hemphill [1]. Branching off from the wikipedia page I found http://www.hillcountryharmonica.com/hillcountryblues.html, a site that offers more detail and history. Hill Country Blues is described in contrast to the Chicago style blues of Muddy Waters, and also as distinct for Delta blues, as a subgenre of country blues "characterized by a strong emphasis on rhythm and percussion, steady guitar riffs, few chord changes, unconventional song structures, and heavy emphasis on the "groove" - more affectionately known as "the hypnotic boogie.""[2] Another description that stood out to me was "Hill country blues is functional: it's all about the groove, and the dancers who move to the groove." [1]
In an interview with BluesinLondon.com Belfour said in response to a question about his career, "I'd been playing all my life - I thought myself by ear listening to the radio... started off by chord and I changed over - I wanted to do notes... I wanted something somebody else wasn't doing, because everybody was imitating somebody else you know - chords and stuff - and I wanted my own thing". Belfour is distinguished by his own style of "percussive attack and alternate tunings" [3]. In the same London interview he described his tuning as 'cross tuned Spanish so that's the reason why can't nobody tune their guitar to find what I do - because it's cross tuned Spanish tuning." [4]
Belfour expands on how he learned to play by telling a story about an older woman teaching him John Lee Hooker.'s 'Crawling Kingsnake'. As he tells it "she told me "I'm gonna show you how to play this song, I want you to learn this." I sat there and she showed me. She did it about three or four times and then she handed me the guitar". He continued practicing and playing for his community, eventually in the 80s playin on Beale Street. He was able to tour extensively at home and abroad before his death in 2015 [4].
I credit Anna Washenko for introducing me to Robert Belfour during the BluesSHOUT 2015 Solo Cuttin' finals. For the final pairing, Anna threw on a song with a different character and feel than I'd heard all weekend, 'Breaking My Heart' by Robert Belfour. I purchased the album 'Pushing My Luck' the next day.
BluesSHOUT 2015 Cuttin' Finals - 21:40 for Song
More information about Report Belfour is available from the Fat Possum label:
http://fatpossum.com/robert-belfour-1940-2015/
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[1] http://www.hillcountryharmonica.com/hillcountryblues.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_country_blues#cite_note-1
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Belfour#cite_note-2
[4] http://www.bluesinlondon.com/interviews/robert_belfour_2007.html
