The Burden of Blues

“The blues died when they took the ‘fuck’ out of it, ” says Rocco DeLuca, the front man of California rock outfit the Burden, in his bio. “To get [the blues] back we need to stick the real soul, that punk element back into it.” DeLuca would know; his father...

By John Linn

August 23, 2007

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“The blues died when they took the ‘fuck’ out of it, ” says Rocco DeLuca, the front man of California rock outfit the Burden, in his bio. “To get [the blues] back we need to stick the real soul, that punk element back into it.”

DeLuca would know; his father was a guitarist who kept the family afloat through relentless blues circuit touring, a craft young Rocco picked up early on. As a resident act at the Los Angeles club Gypsy Lounge, he got to jam with big names in country and blues like John Mayall, John Lee Hooker, and Johnny Cash. After slicing open L.A. for a couple years with his steel-string Dobro guitar, DeLuca was approached by Kiefer Sutherland’s record label, Ironworks, to make an album of the same gutsy, punk-fueled blues he was shredding through every night. So DeLuca put together the Burden to back him up and help record his first album, I Trust You to Kill Me – a thick layer of slide guitar and quivering vocals that slink around rhythmic pulses before exploding in throaty fits. You can trust DeLuca to bring the “fuck” back to the Culture Room (3045 N Federal Hwy, Fort Lauderdale) when he visits this Friday at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $12. Call 954-564-1074.
Fri., Aug. 24

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