Fat Possum Records is a label started in 1991 by Matthew Johnson (4) for the express purpose recording of R.L. Burnside. It later became an effort to find the last original bluesmen and record them before they died. Most of the artists were difficult to work with; they had talent and lived the blues, but either had little aspiration for success, encountered personality conflicts with management, or had a limited number of songs. Most of them had a sound that was too raw for success in the current market of of big-label blues.

Recently the label has expanded their catalog to include newer indie blues rock bands.