Up Close & Personal

Watermelon Slim and the Workers Bill "Watermelon Slim" Homans sings like a baying basset, drawing the tongue-in-cheek misery of tunes like "Hard Times" and "Check Writing Woman" out in long, dry-mouthed syllables. But it's the slide guitar on this, his third album, that really howls, whether he's playing smoot...	Big Shoes to Fill	The Wheel Man This Oklahoma City singer and slide guitarist is at the creative apex of traditional blues. He took the roundabout route to get there--fighting in the jungles of Vietnam, officiating at funerals, and working as a trucker, forklift operator, saw miller, firewood salesman, and coll...	No Paid Holidays Watermelon Slim is a relatively new luminary of the blues, rapidly building a career behind four albums and constant touring. In 2008 Slim was nominated for six awards, a feat matched only by the likes of B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Robert Cray. Slim has twelve nominations in the l...	From the Reach Singer, songwriter and Louisiana slide guitar phenom Sonny Landreth's first studio album in five years unites his band with a who's who of musical guests for a set of all-original roots rock tinged with the blues and New Orleans soul. Featured guitarists and vocalists include Eri...
Skin Deep Skin Deep is the 2008 release by Buddy Guy. The album features The Memphis Horns, Willie Mitchell,Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Eric Clapton, Robert Randolph and Quinn Sullivan.	Mess of Blues	10 Days Out (Blues from the Backroads)/ (CD/DVD) This "back-to-the-roots" road-trip documentary CD/DVD from blues-rocking guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd can be viewed in two ways--it's either the culmination of a long-held desire to promote and play with some unheralded blues veterans before they pass away (as six had already d...	Breakin' It Up & Breakin' It Down Muddy Waters had his second coming 30 years ago, when longtime friend and disciple Johnny Winter and his Blue Sky label returned him--after a series of listless recordings aimed at the rock audience--to the raw, powerful authenticity of his timeless Chess material with a series o...	Hernando Combine the fatback guitar tone of Eric Clapton during his Cream days with the slap-back rhythms of the delta, and you've got the spontaneous combustion that fires through the best of Hernando. After excursions into psychedelic jamming, this Mississippi trio returns to its roots...

this CD rocks!
I went and saw John Lee Hooker JR. at Triple Door in Seattle last year and this was the guy that opened for him. Wow, what a great performer. And, what great lyrics. Watermelon Slim has a lot of soul and life and experience woven into his lyrics. Great, fun music to have a little whiskey and sing-a-long to!

Up close & Personal
For many years I've been a big fan of blues and jazz and it's been a long time since I heard an acoustic blues record so good. I was so impressed that I had to hear it again and again, especially the opening track TRUCK HOLLER #1 and the second one BLUE FREIGHTLINER and so on no missing the sensational last track TRASHY TRASHMEN. Admittedly, I am in love with electric blues, but I recommend it to all blues lovers.

Honest, First-Rate Blues! I Get this Guy!
I had a Golden opportunity to see Slim at the BayFront Blues Fest in Duluth, MN this summer, MISSED IT, and have been kicking myself ever since. Since I couldn't see him up close and personal, I made the decision to buy his disc ("Up Close and Personal"...hmmm) based on the strength of some samplings from his website. (I'm spinning the disc as I write this.) He's a first-rate resonator player (vintage National), which in itself INSTANTLY attracted me. He's a first-rate songwriter, interjecting humor between lamentations, and a Cynical Old Bastard who's simply loaded with the mojo. I GET this guy: he IS the blues, and I'm looking forward to hearing a lot more!

Engaging and raw blues music without the monotony.
This disc is one of those rare blues records that provide everything one would want from blues music without the same old (and often boring) repetitions. Watermelon Slim plays from his heart and with his own singular style. If you're looking for contemporary SRV blues you might like this - especially if you like good roots music. If you like ingenuity in transfering emotions to music in an organic and unmanufactured method this album is a must. 18 tracks and not one that sounds like another simply makes economic sense. As all good blues recording have, you'll find themes of personal demons, struggles with mortality, work and women among others. But like those gems in your collection this is full of the unexpected while staying true to the concept of the 'blues.' More often than not, I buy records for the music with little thought for the artist. It seems all these songs are autobiographical (even the covers sound as if...) and thus make the personal connection and I find myself happy to support Slim by buying the record in hopes he can continue making more. How often have you had that feeling after purchasing a record?

This white dude is the Blues
The only thing missing is a life sentence being served for murder at Angola Prison.