Hot Buttered Records

Hot Buttered Records is the record label and music publisher for emerging blues artist Popcorn Lung Lincoln, based in Lawrence Kansas.

Popcorn Lung Lincoln has burst forth from the American Midwest with a debut 6-song EP — entitled “Dead in Atchison” — that draws from Mississippi Delta blues, which Popcorn Lung himself honed at the elbow of legendary blues man Floyd Lee.

Popcorn describes his sound as "institutional blues for the institutionalized." Recorded quick and dirty, the music showcases Popcorn's slide guitar and harmonica, framed by gorgeous piano and some unexpected sounds too, including cello, flute, banjo and a chorus of somewhat repentant drunks and users.

“I’ve spent time in the past using multi-track recording and studio tricks galore,” said Popcorn. “But today for me, the rawness of the recordings of Robert Johnson have a million times more meaning than people who spend two years in a recording studio. Most everything was written, performed and recorded within a day or two.”

In retreat from computers and over-complexity, “Dead in Atchison” was recorded in one track of mono sound, in the city of Atchison, Kan., during a two week sojourn there with fellow musicians from the Kansas City area. Its influences include the Missouri river, institutional food and newfound friendships.

Popcorn Lung Lincoln paid particular homage to Floyd Lee, the New York City-based busker who was born in the Mississippi Delta, and who is a cousin to blues legend John Lee Hooker.

“I met Floyd in the Times Square/42nd Street station of the subway in New York,” said Popcorn. “He invited me to play cross-harp with him, which I used to play around the city to keep people from running into me on the sidewalks. At first, he didn’t like my playing too much. But eventually, he started tipping me out.”

Now based in Lawrence, Kan., Popcorn Lincoln Plans to keep honing his blues craft while exploring venues in Kansas City, his hometown and an internationally known mecca of the blues. Indeed, growing up in K.C., Popcorn Lung Lincoln was schooled in the music from the father of his junior high school girlfriend.

“This man, Mr. Waldo, was the president of the Kansas City Blues Society in the 1980s,” Popcorn said. “So I went to some wild parties they threw and got to know the blues pretty early on. I even played with a guy named ‘Monkey Man,’ who was a prominent blues singer and guitar player around here back in that time.”

Not content with any one sound, Popcorn said he planned to keep stretching his music by playing with new musicians and trying different combinations of instruments and genres, always with an eye fixed on the blues.

Popcorn Lung Lincoln’s debut EP, “Dead in Atchison,” will be available everywhere online shortly. His Facebook page is facebook.com/popcornlunglincoln. Call 785-312-0207 for booking.