When Fat Possum began releasing records in the early ‘90s few imagined they would eventually become America’s premier blues label. The hellacious racket that issued forth from their modest Oxford, Mississippi headquarters alienated many blues traditionalists too blinkered to realize that gleeful obscenity, unearthly dissonance, and foul dispositions are as essential to the blues as hellhounds and black cat bones. In the years since, the doubters have become converts but while Fat Possum artists like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside have gained much deserved, if sadly posthumous, recognition, major talents like Robert Belfour still labor in relative obscurity. Belfour hails from rural Mississippi and developed his uniquely percussive style of guitar playing under the tutelage of Junior Kimbrough and fife and drum master Othar Turner. On Pushin’ My Luck He demonstrates his skills as a master guitarist in the mode of Mississippi Fred McDowell, whose driving “Hill Country” playing style dates back to the dawn of the twentieth century. Balfour sings of sleepless nights and the approach of death in a haunting, care worn baritone that ideally complements his bass-heavy fingerpicking. The legitimate heir to the master players of the Mississippi hill country and Pushin’ My Luck is his most fully realized work.