Throughout an industrious career, performing more than a thousand shows and producing over a dozen records, The Black Keys have managed to achieve success with both commercial and independent music fans, but just as impressively have helped North Mississippi Hill Country Blues reach a wider audience than any other mainstream artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, although they originate from Akron, Ohio<\/strong>, the band has become one of Hill Country Blues music\u2019s best ambassadors. Despite that only guitarist\/vocalist Dan Auerbach<\/strong>, who makes up one-half of the famously full-sounding duo, has performed live at the festival, The Black Keys\u2019 recent role as a Picnic sponsor has proven to be as important to the whole operation as if they were playing. Particularly since getting back on track after a hiatus for Covid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The importance of the Picnic\u2019s mission is absolutely not lost on drummer Patrick Carney<\/strong>. In fact, he credits the music of R.L. Burnside<\/strong> for starting his musical connection with bandmate Auerbach. Both band members had brothers who were the same age and in the same year of high school, yet the two didn\u2019t become friends until urged by their siblings to connect with each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen Dan came over to my house, and we started talking music, he noticed that I had an R.L. 45 (RPM record), and was like \u2018man, I listen to a ton of this,\u2019\u201d Carney recently told The Local Voice<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carney, who discovered Burnside\u2019s music through a collaboration album recorded with indie-rock band Jon Spencer Blues Explosion<\/strong>, titled A Ass Pocket of Whiskey<\/em><\/strong>, had never met anyone who shared his uncommon interest in the Hill Country blues master. \u201cI was the only other dude that was his age that had anything to do with that\u2014you know, with what little knowledge I had.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two went down into Carney\u2019s basement and Auerbach began \u201cbasically playing R.L. riffs.\u201d He said Auerbach then introduced him to Junior Kimbrough<\/strong>\u2019s music, as well others like T-Model Ford<\/strong>, from Greenville, Mississippi<\/strong>, who was also on the Fat Possum<\/strong> record label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat was our first musical bonding \u2026 even on our first record, there\u2019s a bunch of shout-outs to that music,\u201d said Carney. \u201cEven as the band evolves, we always come back to it.\u201d He recalled in 2019, when they had just come off a big arena tour, Auerbach called him and said that Kenny Brown<\/strong> was in town, and that he should come by his studio Easy Eye Sound<\/strong>, located in Nashville<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a matter of two days, The Black Keys and Brown, along with another Picnic mainstay, beloved Oxford guitarist, singer, and bassist, Eric Deaton<\/strong>, recorded what became the band\u2019s 2021 album Delta Kream<\/em><\/strong>. Although their goal was just to jam with them, he said \u201cit really brought us back to our roots.\u201d Thereafter a relationship grew between the duo and Brown, and eventually his wife Sara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cKenny\u2019s the one that\u2019s on all those records, that\u2019s still alive,\u201d said Carney. \u201cHe\u2019s our OG, so it\u2019s important for us to help out with what him and Sara are doing. We\u2019re proud to be part of it.\u201d He said that the band seldom devotes such enthusiasm to a sponsorship, and that they typically lean more toward supporting youth baseball, making the Hill Country Picnic rather unique for The Black Keys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The group\u2019s local presence has been palpable in the last couple of years. Besides being a major sponsor of the Picnic, they also played a sold out show at The Lyric<\/strong> theater, which included Brown and Deaton joining them on stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It was cool, because Oxford, Mississippi, changed our lives,\u201d said Carney. \u201cThat\u2019s where we got our first big break. Our first record came out on a small label out of L.A., but the label that we always wanted to be on was Fat Possum, ya know, since we were teenagers \u2026 and that became the beginning of a twenty-plus year relationship\u2014signing to the label that inspired us to do it in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although they\u2019ve returned multiple times since their big Oxford show, prior to that, The Black Keys hadn\u2019t played locally since Proud Larry<\/strong>\u2019s in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regarding the aura and energy of North Mississippi\u2014particularly in Marshall County\u2014where much of the great Hill Country Blues hails from, he described its intangible effect as \u201cmagical.\u201d Carney said that when he\u2019s here he can \u201cfeel the history,\u201d and that \u201cnot every place is like that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He likened the experience of listening to Hill Country blues music in North Mississippi to that of hearing a punk rock band like The Ramones while in the Lower East Side of New York City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt all makes sense. I picture what it used to be like,\u201d he said. \u201cMemphis has this thing, and North Mississippi does as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/shutterstock_Patrick-Carney-copy-2-1.jpg?resize=640%2C553&ssl=1\")
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