For generations, North Mississippi Hill Country Blues has been passed from musician to musician the old fashioned way—at front porches, juke joints, family gatherings, and long nights spent watching another player’s hands.
That same spirit remains at the center of the Guitar Workshop connected to the 2026 North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic, where four musicians deeply tied to the tradition—Kenny Brown, Garry Burnside, Cary Hudson, and Eric Deaton—will guide students through the unique language of Hill Country blues during a four-hour clinic on Thursday, June 25.
Rather than functioning like a formal classroom, the workshop centers on direct interaction between students and musicians who learned the style firsthand from older generations of Mississippi blues artists.
“You can Google these licks now,” Hudson explained during a recent interview. “But there’s something about learning them from somebody who learned them from somebody else.”
Hudson—who hails from down in Sumrall, Mississippi, but founded roots-rock band Blue Mountain in Oxford in the early-90s—described the workshop as part of a much longer musical lineage.
“I consider myself to be part of a Mississippi lineage,” he said. “One person shows another person. That’s magic.”
Few musicians embody that lineage more directly than Kenny Brown. Widely regarded as one of the defining guitarists of the Hill Country blues tradition, Brown began absorbing the music as a child while hearing artists like Otha Turner and Napolean Strickland perform near his family home in Nesbit, Mississippi. As a teenager, he apprenticed under Mississippi Joe Callicott before later becoming the longtime musical partner of R.L. Burnside, who famously referred to Brown as his “adopted son.”
For decades, Brown helped carry the Hill Country sound to audiences around the world through performances and recordings alongside artists including Junior Kimbrough, Jessie Mae Hemphill, T-Model Ford, Cedell Davis, and the North Mississippi Allstars. More recently, Brown appeared on The Black Keys’ Grammy-nominated album Delta Kream, recorded with Eric Deaton and the band in Nashville.
Brown and his wife Sara also remain among the driving forces behind the Hill Country Picnic itself, helping preserve and promote the region’s blues culture for new generations.
Garry Burnside offers students another direct connection to the roots of the music. As the youngest son of R.L. Burnside and a former member of Junior Kimbrough’s Soul Blues Boys, Burnside grew up immersed in the rhythms and phrasing that define the Hill Country sound. Performing publicly since childhood, he developed a style that blends traditional Hill Country blues with rock and other Southern influences while remaining grounded in the groove-heavy approach associated with his father’s music.
Hudson and Deaton both emphasized that groove—rather than flashy technique—as one of the workshop’s central lessons.
“It’s more about the groove,” Hudson said. “It’s not really an opportunity to show off licks.”
Hudson noted that one of the key adjustments he made as a player involved learning to abandon a flat pick in favor of fingerstyle playing.
“One thing I had to learn was playing with my fingers instead of a pick,” he said. “That’s an important part of it.”
Deaton teaches from that same perspective. Currently touring as the bassist with The Black Keys, Deaton has participated in the workshop for more than a decade and said the sessions are intentionally designed to feel personal and informal.
“They divide the workshop group into about three or four groups of people,” Deaton explained while preparing for a tour stop in Portland, Oregon. “You usually end up teaching three or four classes of anywhere from two to five people at a time.”
The smaller format allows instructors to spend focused time with each participant regardless of experience level.
“I just try to have several Hill Country type things for them to learn,” Deaton said.
Like Hudson, Deaton avoids heavily structured lessons or written materials during the clinic.
“I don’t write anything for them either,” he said. “It’s just sit there and absorb what you can.”
That approach reflects the way many Mississippi musicians originally learned the style themselves—by spending time around older players and gradually absorbing the rhythms, phrasing, and feel that cannot easily be written down.
“There are things you can’t really notate,” Hudson said. “You have to know the language.”
The workshop regularly attracts everyone from beginners to seasoned regional musicians looking to deepen their understanding of Hill Country blues. Deaton recalled teaching fellow musicians over the years who specifically wanted to strengthen that side of their playing.
“We all know different stuff,” he said. “Especially those of us who haven’t come up in the blues thing, there’s things you can show those guys.”
The workshop continues to stand out because of both the atmosphere that Brown & company create, and this rare opportunity for practicing musicians to learn directly from players on the top of their field.
“The Picnic workshop is always interesting, and I enjoy meeting all the people,” Brown said. “There is a lot of knowledge to be gained at the workshop.”
For the four instructors, the clinic represents far more than a guitar lesson. It remains an opportunity to preserve a uniquely Mississippi tradition in the same way it has always survived – through direct human connection, shared experience, and the passing of knowledge from one musician to another.
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