RL Boyce & Jessie "Chip" Daniels
Text by Adam Lore (first article below originally published in 50 Miles of Elbow Room #2 in 2002)
The black-&-white photos that appear in most of the Soundcloud players are by Yancey Allison.


*** The RL Boyce remembrance that was sent to the 50 Miles email list in December 2023 is available at this link for now (scroll down...). A version of it may be incorporated below in the future. ***

I had a hunch that I would enjoy the company of RL Boyce even before I knew for sure who he was. I was standing off by myself at Otha Turner’s ’99 picnic when a tall, lean man who wore a cap that declared “goats are great” came up to me, shook my hand, said, “Hey man. How you doin’? Lookin’ good,” and then continued on his way. That weekend I saw Mr. Boyce sing, play guitar, beat drums, and do a grinding slowdance with a dog when all his human dance partners were exhausted or elsewhere. I was pretty impressed and thought, “Wow, I should talk to this guy someday.” That occasion came almost two years later, on the funeral day of Napolian Strickland, a legendary fife player who was a long-time collaborator with RL.

RL Boyce has been playing music in the north Mississippi style since he was a young man. He says, “I always wanted to be a guitar player,” and grew up listening to RL Burnside, John Lee Hooker, and Fred McDowell, who he describes as “the toughest man you ever saw in your life. I’m talkin’ about bad. Sho’nuff bad.” He has played guitar and/or drums with Strickland, Otha Turner, Jessie Mae Hemphill, and Twenty Miles, as well as been a mentor to Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars. His style is playfully exuberant, full of repetitive, immediately appealing and danceable boogie riffs that slither about in a loose, freewheeling, but always under control manner.

Chip is one of RL’s cousins and is probably one of his biggest fans. His birth name is Jessie Daniels, but everybody calls him Chip. Chip’s laugh is as close as can be to a giggle without actually qualifying as one, and traces of this laugh can be heard in his expressive singing voice, which contains a youthful enthusiasm and joy that is unmistakable, even when he sings about sorrow and hardship. Also cousin to Strickland, Mr. Daniels also plays the fife and beats the snare drum. When he takes his turn at blowing the cane, he’ll often call out in euphoric song and shake his instrument at the crowd. 

This music has been an integral part of each of their lives since their formative years and their art is a direct outgrowth of the local tradition. They also share a belief that the music they listen to and create is a healer that has enabled them to cope more easily with an often-arduous life. RL, Chip, and other area musicians have an especially intimate relationship with the music and audience, which is one reason that this custom has not faded and their songs continue to resonate with many people in northern MS and elsewhere.

RL, Chip, Yancey Allison, and I sat down with refreshments at the guest house of Sherman Cooper on July 28, 2001, a couple hours after Chip, RL, and the other pallbearers labored with shovels under the hot sun to cover Napolian Strickland’s sky-blue coffin with tan Mississippi earth.

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When was the first picnic you went to?

RL: The first picnic I went to, man, it was LP Buford[’s store, the site of many picnics.] I was…I’m 45 now. I can’t believe I’ve been a man 25 years.

I have a record you’re on from 1970, when you were playing with Napolian.

RL: Yeah, Napolian and Otha. But my first time of playing, man, I could carry you back to the place that I used to live at, and the place that I walked across a ditch, they had the fife and drums. I told my mama one day, I said, “Lord, if I ever get over there…”

How old were you then?

RL: I was about 15 years old. And then when I did get to playing with Otha and them, I played with GD Young, I played with Napolian. Napolian was the best that I ever played with. Let me tell you somethin’: when Napolian called a cane, whooo, everybody. And man, we would get down! Napolian, he would blow, then he’d walk down and come back…Napolian, man I’ll tell you somethin’: back then in ’70, ’75, and ’80, man, I had a good time. I had a good time. Yeah man, I had a good time. When I played with Bernice [Pratcher], me and Bernice were the youngest two that played with Otha. Her and I were young. And I played when she didn’t play. And nobody learned me. I learned [drums] on my own. I don’t read no music. I don’t read no kind of music. I go by sound.

As far as I can play guitar, but ain’t one man I want to be like, that’s RL Burnside, because you see me and him is second cousins. And I wanna be like John Lee Hooker. But then a lot of times, we get to playing and stuff, they wouldn’t let me play my style. Most times I get on up there man, me and Luther [Dickinson], we go up…and I say, “What do you want me to do?” “Well, go ahead and do what you gotta do. Anything.” I tell you, I tear it up.

I saw you two play together at the picnic a couple years ago.

RL: We cut a few demos about a month ago. He did a little church song and he asked me to help him do it. I said no.

Do you ever sing church numbers?

RL: Oh yeah. I’m the type, when I sing a church song, I get full and I go. Man, let me tell you somethin’: when I get to singing, and when I get full, there’s a side door there, and I go to that side door and won’t come back in there.

Some people like to sing just one or the other. Rev. Wilkins was talking about that at the funeral today – he won’t sing the blues anymore.  [ed note: Rev. John Wilkins, son of the legendary Rev. Robert Wilkins, eulogized Strickland.]

RL: Well, he ain’t gonna sing it no more because he changed. But now if he hadn’t changed, he would. I played with him, some church songs. He tried to teach me some and I tried to teach him. But, you know, I know my style, he know his style, and I can’t tell him his style and he can’t tell me my style. I had friends by the name of Nick Taylor and Joe Townsend, they sing that song, “Goin’ Over the Hill,” and those were the two guys who taught me how to play what I wanna play. I mean, I can go anywhere in the world and anytime a person asks me to fill in, I’m ready to fill in. I can fill in. But I’m gonna tell you one thing: you ain’t gonna beat me and I ain’t gonna beat you. I’m gonna know my style and when you get up there, you know your style. And you take like Luther and Cody, when we always went somewhere, when they want me to do a song, it’s in my head what I wanna do. And then they tell me, “Don’t show me up! Don’t show me up!” I said, “No, I ain’t gonna show you up! (laughs) I’m gonna back down. It’s your show.”

Chip: I started way back. Abe Chatham, he had them picnics, and I started with Otha and them, with my daddy. He’d carry me when I was a little boy. He’d take me out in the back of the trucks to the picnics and I liked it so well, I’d sit down and beat by myself. And my dad told me, “Hey! Look at that boy beat!” And Otha told me, “Come on out here!” So I loved it and I started beating. I was a little ol’ boy. I was about maybe 10, 15 years old. I loved it! And the picnics, with these guys beating the drums man, I loved it. It just hit me right there. I liked that. I always could sing: “goin’ over the hill,” “my baby don’t stand no cheatin’,” and I loved it. When I would go to the picnics, my dad would tell me, I was out there, I used to beat the Hambone and I could pop my lips. And then they’d give me, back then, I’d get a nickel for every time. Hey, them nickels started comin’, I was still beatin’ the Hambone.

Who else were you listening to when you were growing up that you really liked?

Chip: RL Burnside. Fred McDowell, he’s my cousin. He’d come to my daddy’s house and play. … I would go in here and sit down and listen, he would play the guitar, hey, and I liked it. … I was like RL – man, I want to do that one day. 

When you were first taking up music, did people encourage you?

Chip: What it is, they found I had a voice. See, I sang all through high school in the choir, and I started going to talent shows.

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RL: Let me tell you somethin’: one time I stayed by myself for five years. Lemme tell ya, blue, man. You get by yourself, ooohhh Lord have mercy. … When I played by myself I cut all kinds of songs. I could sit there at night, I’d get me a six-pack of beer, and I’d go home and sit there, man, a song would come through my head. Again, let me tell you somethin’: if the blues is with you, it’s with you. … You get off by yourself, man, get to thinking, and think what people have did to you and for you way back yonder, whooo. I used to mourn, I ain’t gonna mourn no more!

Chip: RL, he started out … on a bass drum. He had one friend, LT, he wanted to be like RL, but look here – he couldn’t catch RL. Napolian, he’d say, “Come on, man! Come on, man!  RL!” When RL would get to that drum, ssshhh–!

RL: I was bad!

Chip: People crowdin’ around and around…

RL: I’m like Muhammad Ali: “I’m bad! I’m the greatest!” (laughs)

Chip: But you know what I like about that? He’s natural. RL, you were born with that talent. … To me, you just can’t learn like that.

RL: There were 17 of us. I’m the only one of the family that played blues.

Chip: My mom, she used to sing in the choir. They say you can be born with a talent or you can learn it, but I was born with a gift for singin’. I don’t do it like I’m supposed to, but I love singin’. If it sounds good to me and makes me feel good, I know it sounds good to you.

RL: I was livin’ by myself. On Saturday evening, I’d get off work. I had me no guitar, and man, I had my own tape player. I’d sit there and make my own music up.

Chip: RL! You talkin’ about a harmonica?

RL: Yeah.

Chip: Hey! You can blow it!

RL: Oh yeah. I can blow what I wanna blow. … It ain’t what you do, it’s how you do it. I just sit back and watch people sometimes – you do this, you do that. One of these days, I’m gonna do just what you’re doin’.

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RL: I ain’t been all over the world. Let me tell you somethin’: a lot of people pretend they’re so famous. I’m not famous. I was born and raised here. Back when I was comin’ on, man, it was hard. Man, you talk about hard, it was hard when I was comin’ on. My friend…when I went to school, his daddy was big time. I couldn’t talk to him. But now I and him work together. [I’ll say,] “Hey man, you wanna beer?” … He won’t speak to me. He’ll see me and don’t see me.

But the Lord put everybody in one way. He put you here for two things: that’s to stay here or to leave here. He put you here for two things: you can stay here or you can leave here. And a lotta times, I hear people hollerin’ about heaven and hell. … Everybody I see, they’re goin’ one place. Know where it is?  Straight down! (laughs) When something happens to me, you know how I told ’em to bury me? With my face down! (laughs)

What do you think is most important for people to know about you and the music you play?

RL: (laughs) Get me another drink, here. (laughs) I love the blues. I was raised up on blues. I come outta the cottonfield on blues. I went to jail on the blues. I stayed in jail 377 days, I was blue. … But lemme tell you somethin’: if you ever get lonesome (lifts guitar), it’s a friend. 

Chip: Sometimes I have trouble, I feel so lonesome, you know what I do? I sit down and sing to myself. But you know, it comes from here. (points to his heart) … It cools me down.

RL: I can’t play Junior [Kimbrough’s] style. I can’t play RL Burnside’s style. I play this other RL style.

Chip: Right!

RL: I play it my style. Make it what you want out of it.

Jessie “Chip” Daniels died on June 28, 2002, after suffering a stroke. A brief remembrance is found in the Turner benefit program.

The audio excerpts heard here were spontaneously performed during this interview, captured on a cheap handheld cassette recorder. RL is playing Ranie Burnette's old guitar, and Chip is lead singer. Both men sing on "Child of God," with Chip being more prominent due his proximity to the recorder. This material is presented in fond memory of Chip.

Bonus recordings from the 2001 session, added here in 2023:

2012 postscript:

It was an honor to write the liner notes for Boyce's debut LP, Ain't the Man's Alright, released by Sutro Park:

RL Boyce was born on August 15, 1955, in Como, Mississippi, where he still resides. It is a community with enduring blues, fife-and-drum, and gospel traditions. Boyce picked up music as a teenager, starting out singing in the church choir and playing percussion in fife-and-drum bands. Regarding his evolution on the drums, he says, “I learned from a foot tub. Back then we didn’t have a bathtub – a foot tub is what you bathed in, what you had your water in.” His earliest issued recording [“Late at Midnight, Just a Little Before Day,” on Traveling Through the Jungle: Negro Fife and Drum Band Music from the Deep South] was made on his 15th birthday, accompanying his uncle Otha Turner. Boyce later adjusted that percussion style to a blues context on a more expanded drum kit, as heard on Jessie Mae Hemphill’s classic Feelin’ Good album. His singular, bursting-at-the-seams drumming on the first side of that record is a benchmark of loose-limbed groove.  

Perhaps it isn’t surprising that such a vibrant musician would want to branch out from solely being a sideman to establish himself as a solo artist and leader of his own groups. Inspired by his neighbors Mississippi Fred McDowell and RL Burnside, he took up the guitar: “Oh man, I loved it. I always wanted to do what they did, so I got along with it.” He was coached by a couple local musicians including Joe Townsend (whose sole 45 for Designer Records is spellbinding, live-in-the-church gospel blues [It is unclear who plays guitar on Townsend’s 45. Bengt Olsson’s research states it was Johnnie Mays, while Boyce has consistently asserted that it sounds like Townsend accompanied himself.  Of course, it is also possible that both guitarists shared a similar approach.]) and over time he developed an individual style that draws upon songs from the local repertoire and interprets them with considerable enthusiasm and spontaneity.

RL comes from a stream of the folk tradition that is less concerned with “getting it right” than getting it going, and with developing a distinct, individual sound. While regionally popular tunes and lyrics often serve as the bedrock of Boyce’s material, he takes them to places that no one else would, often peppering them with lyrics he makes up on the spot, as well as shout outs to his collaborators, his longtime companion Sheila Birge and their daughter Shanquisha, and anyone else who might happen to be in the vicinity. At other times, his songs are fully improvised. As Boyce puts it, “Most of it, when somethin’ hits my mind, I just start. You know, like if I’m around you and I think about you a lot, I could sit at home in the yard, if you hit my mind, I play one right there, right then. I’m playin’ this for Adam, a friend of mine in New York.  It’d hit me like that and I’d just go right on. I don’t do no rehearsin’ with nobody. I don’t do nothin’ like that.  Whatever hits me, I jump in on it.” If he is in one of these more talkative moods, his stream of consciousness delivery is reminiscent of Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, and even the jokester side of Furry Lewis. When he really gets going, there is a deeply infectious sense of release, and of letting loose. At such times, laughter comes easy and often from RL and those around him.

Although Boyce occasionally takes gigs in faraway locales, most of the time he seems content to play at clubs and parties closer to home, often in his own front yard. His music developed within this informal environment where he plays largely for friends and family, which is perhaps one reason why his songs have such an open-ended, spontaneous, freewheeling quality. His performances are very social and he welcomes an unpredictable, interactive relationship with his fellow performers as well as the audience. Other musicians may be invited to join in, but they shouldn’t expect much guidance. An inquiry regarding what key Boyce is playing in will likely elicit an instruction along the lines of “follow me.” This is not always a straightforward task. They need to be ready to respond to sudden shifts, make adjustments on the fly, or play for hours while making subtle variations on a few grooves.

This record, Boyce’s long-awaited full-length debut, includes a rotating cast of collaborators who are accustomed to operating in this framework while also adding their personalities to the proceedings. In his earlier years, Luther Dickinson played extensively with RL [Most notably on Otha Turner’s Everybody Hollerin’ Goat, which Dickinson produced], and here both men take a clear delight in renewing their partnership, at times calling to mind the sparks that flew when Mississippi Fred McDowell and Eli Green performed together. Guitarist Lightnin’ Malcolm and RL sit in on one another’s sets quite often, each seemingly with an open invitation to join the other (As documented on the M for Mississippi film and soundtrack). And it is always a treat to hear drummer Calvin Jackson’s instantly recognizable rolling and tumbling style, sometimes done in tandem with his son, Cedric Burnside, on a second drum kit. Like all the other participants, they sound as if they’re having a ball. 

Though RL is now one of the elders among the traditional musicians in Como, his songs still retain the quality of when he was an exuberant youngster who was thrilled to be learning to play music with his role models. - Adam Lore, 2012

2013 postscript:

RL Boyce periodically holds house parties where he plays for his friends, neighbors, & visitors from far and wide. He continues to perform occasionally with the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band. In 2007 he recorded his debut album (see above), which was released in 2013. 

In September 2012, 50 Miles of Elbow Room brought RL to New York City to play few solo shows, the first NYC concerts to spotlight him extensively as a leader / solo performer on guitar & vocals. The video and black-and-white photos below are from the final night: a 3+ hour set at the Great Jones Cafe, with Greg Anderson sitting in on drums. The color photograph is from the show at Barbes. Many thanks to Ted Barron for the photos & Amy Verdon for the video.

RL Boyce at Barbes in Brooklyn, NY, Sept. 8, 2012. Photo by Ted Barron.

RL Boyce & Greg Anderson at Great Jones Cafe, NYC, Sept. 9, 2012. Photo by Ted Barron.

RL Boyce & Greg Anderson at Great Jones Cafe, NYC, Sept. 9 or 10, 2012. Photo by Ted Barron.

2018 postscript:

Yancey Allison’s beautiful, rarely-seen photos of RL were exhibited in Como, MS, in 2018. It was an honor (& a challenge!) to contribute this brief write-up to accompany the exhibit:

When RL Boyce & Yancey Allison met in the late 1990s, two vibrant artists found each other at just the right time. Yancey was a young photographer inspired by the culture & community of north Mississippi and searching for an in-depth project. Mary Lindsay Dickinson advised her, “Go to the source.” Following that suggestion led her to RL, a drummer since his early teens who was starting to establish himself more as a guitarist, singer, & leader. He immediately welcomed Yancey into his world & encouraged her to document it. These dynamic, heartfelt, & intimate photos are beautiful results of their years of close collaboration & bond.

RL Boyce & Lester, photo by Yancey Allison