[10][12] Other local teachers were his wife's brother,[9] his uncle-in-law Ranie Burnette,[11] who was a popular player from Senatobia,[13] the mostly unknown Henry Harden,[14] Son Hibbler, Jesse Vortis, and possibly Stonewall Mays.

[15] Burnside cited church singing[12][16] and fife-and-drum picnics as elements of his childhood's musical landscape, and he credited Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, and John Lee Hooker as influences in adulthood.

[10] He found jobs at metal and glass factories,[11][18][19] had the company of Muddy Waters (his cousin-in-law),[10] and enjoyed the blues scene on Maxwell Street.

After coming back to Mississippi, and especially after marrying,[14] he picked more local gigs,[17] playing guitar in juke joints and bars[3] (some under his management),[2][11][8][28] at picnics and at his own open house parties,[23][n 5] and at the occasional festival.

[32][33] These recordings featured Burnside playing acoustic guitar and singing, and a few tracks had harmonica accompaniment by W.C. Veasey or Ulysse Red Ramsey.

[8][23] His early repertoire came from hill country and Memphis favorites, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters,[34] hits by Howlin' Wolf and Elmore James, and sides by Yank Rachell, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Lonesome Sundown.

[36][37][n 6] His performance featured the slide guitarist Kenny Brown, Burnside's friend and understudy, whom he began tutoring in 1971 and claimed as his "adopted son".

They offered a rare fusion of rural and urban blues, funk, R&B and soul,[8][n 8] which appealed to young Mississippians;[23] their sets included covers of songs by Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, Albert King and Little Milton.

Selections focused on hill country material and starker, less danceable songs by Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker.

[11][43][51] The music writer Robert Palmer, teaching for a time in the University of Mississippi in Oxford, frequented the scene with some celebrity musicians, which led to the making in 1990 of the documentary Deep Blues, in which Burnside was prominently featured.

He opened for the Beastie Boys,[11][64] was a musical guest on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and on HBO's Reverb, provided entertainment at private events such as Richard Gere's birthday party,[21] and participated in shared or showcase bills with other Fat Possum artists, notably T-Model Ford, Paul "Wine" Jones, CeDell Davis, Robert Cage and Robert Belfour.

[3][68][69][70] As his tours decreased to a minimum,[71][72] Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down (2000) was released, which relegated guitar work to other players (Rick Holmstrom, Smokey Hormel, John Porter) but used Burnside's vocals.

[25] Fat Possum rebounded with A Bothered Mind (2004), an album that used previously recorded guitar tracks, and included collaborations with Kid Rock and Lyrics Born.

[74] These remix albums received mixed reviews, some describing the results as "unnatural"[75] while others lauded the playful spirit,[76] or "the way it yokes authentic blues feeling to new technology".

[77] Commercially, the remixes were successful; each surpassed its previous in Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart, as they stayed there for 12–18 weeks' periods (but none entered into the more competitive Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs),[78][n 11] and two tracks from Come On In were included in The Sopranos' soundtrack.

"Let My Baby Ride" off Come On In received significant airplay and an ensuing music clip was slotted in MTV's 120 Minutes;[63] the album's "Rollin' & Tumblin'" accompanied a 2002 Nissan TV commercial.

[101] Burnside's fellow Fat Possum musicians The Black Keys credit him as an influence and interpolated his "Skinny Woman" into their track "Busted".

[citation needed] The Black Keys would perform two Burnside covers on their album Delta Kream in 2021 featuring Kenny Brown.

Brown along with bassist Eric Deaton would also join The Black Keys for their 2022 tour (supporting the release of Dropout Boogie) to perform the Burnside covers live.

[102] Burnside had a powerful, expressive voice, that did not fail with old age but rather grew richer,[11][21] and played both electric and acoustic guitar, with and without a slide.

[55][104][n 13] As was the case with his role model John Lee Hooker, Burnside's earliest recordings sound quite similar to one another, even repetitive, in vocal and instrumental styling.

He and his later managers and reviewers maintained his persona as a hard-working man leading a life of struggle,[105] a heavy drinker, latent criminal singing songs of swagger and rebellion.

Burnside knew many toasts—African American narrative folk poems such as "Signifying monkey" and "Tojo Told Hitler"—and fondly recited them between songs at his concerts and on recordings.