RL Boyce is the reigning master of hill country blues. A one-time drummer for Jessie Mae Hemphill, he took up blues guitar at the age of 22, but it was 30 years before he recorded his first album. This year, at the age of 62, he released his second album, Roll and Tumble, out now on Waxploitation. Boyce makes his UK debut at the Blues Kitchen in Shoreditch, London, on 25 October and the Blues Kitchen, Camden, on 26 October.

You began playing fife and drum with your uncle Othar Turner. What made you move to the blues?
I was a big bass player. We had to go out and open shows for BB King and Little Milton. And I would sit back and watch those guys and think, “I wanna try this, I wanna try this…” I met a lot of blues artists when I was growing up. I used you to play with friends of mine, RL Burnside and Mississippi Fred McDowell – we always called him Shake ’Em on Down. I could hear Fred miles and miles coming down the road playing his guitar. I’d say, “Uh-oh, here comes Shake ’Em on Down!” Back then, you weren’t allowed to go to the parties where he was playing, but I got around it: I’d find a tree and stand behind the tree, and if he’d play half of the night I’d sit behind that tree, so my mom and daddy couldn’t see me. So that’s where I got my blues. That’s where I learned.

What’s distinctive about Mississippi hill country blues?
I play my guitar the old way. Some play the guitar this new way – they got a bottleneck and they want to slide, you know what I’m saying? I don’t play with no kind of bottleneck, I don’t use a pick – just my fingers. Stay the old style.

You still live in Como, Mississippi. Could you tell us what it’s like there?
You’d have to look hard to find Como. Como is not that big. I been there all my life. It’s just a circle right around, and back round. They grow a lot of corn, cotton, sweet potato and peas. They do a lot of killing hogs. Everybody I run into in Como, they know what I do and they want to come up. I sit around the house and do a lot of playing, right on my front porch. Anybody, everybody, it don’t matter what colour you are, come up. I want the world to know what I do, and what I can do.

What do you feel is special about the way you play?
What I do is blues. Whatever my mind says goes down my right arm and through these fingers and I’ll run it out to you. You know I tell a lot of people: what God gave me, you can’t take. I can’t learn you what I know. I travel the world, and when I go home there’s things in my mind don’t nobody know. Nobody knows what I’m gonna do. I don’t rehearse. People ask what tune I’m playing, and I say: “I’m not going to tell you what tune! Catch it!”

Until 10 years ago you were still working manual labour as well as playing music.
It was hard. I did a lot of work on the farm, I used to drive a bulldozer. I was in a hole that carried a sewer line, 13, 14ft deep. And I’d look up at the bank and I’d say: “Lord if you ever let me get back to the top of this bank, to do the work you want me to do, I won’t work in this hole no more.”

Roll and Tumble follows the passage of a house party, from one day on through the next…
Oh, house parties are a lot of fun. My party would start at four or five o’clock of an evening. But when I stop it, it would be the next day, around noon time. When we party, we party. Last time I said to the police: “Ain’t no trouble here, just fun, and you hear nothing but blues.”

So you’ve avoided trouble?
Some got fast life. I come up on slow life. You know I go to a party, I come back home. Some that go out to a party didn’t make it back home. Some went to jail. Some got killed. Because they went out and had a fast life. That’s why when I play up on Beale Street in Memphis, I want to hurry up and get home before the sun goes down. Because if you don’t you won’t make it home.

You played gospel as a child. Is faith still a big part of your life?
I go to church - not every Sunday, I go here and there. It’s given me a good life. A pastor told me: “You can’t party and go to church.” So if I quit playing blues I can go to church. So I go to church sometimes. But what am I going to church for if I’m going to drink a beer, or drink a shot of whiskey? Nah. If you’re going to church, go right.

You have two daughters and a son. Do any of them play guitar?
No. They tried it. But until your mind tells you, you ain’t ready. I bought my grandson a guitar. He said, “Grandpa, I’m gonna play guitar just like you!” I said: “You ain’t ready.” He said: “Why you say that?” I said: “Why don’t you have it in your hands? You not ready yet.”