Slim's Blog - Tales From the Road
Send your questions and comments to Watermelon Slim about anything on your mind. Such as music, live shows, influences, politics, whatever. Slim will read all your questions and comments. You will probably find his responses in his next blog entry. Please put in the subject line "Slim's Blog."
June 8, 2011
I first seen you play at the BBC (Bradfordville Blues Club) in Tallahassee FL. You were playing with Mark Hummel's Harp tour. I loved it, and thought you stole the show. Then I seen you play in Jacksonville FL at the Mojo's Kitchen, you again were amazing! It was another Great show!!! I'm hoping to see you at the "King Biscuit Festival" this year in October. It is not listed on your schedule as of yet. Please tell me some Good News and that you will be playing the Biscuit! There is about ten of us traveling from Florida, 2 from California, and 2 from Chicago all going to the biscuit. This will be my first time at the Biscuit and I'm so looking forward to it. Seeing you at the Biscuit would just make the festival even all the more memorable. We are all staying with Rat the owner of the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale Mississippi. The hotel has earned the "Mississippi Blues Trail Marker.
Hoping to see you there.
Gail
Back To List
May 7, 2011
Last year, I was impressed with a story I saw on CNN, an advertisement for well pumps powered by children's school-playground merry-go-rounds. What a simple, multi-purpose boon to mankind.
These simple devices represent a solution not only for the procurement of potable water, the are the way to put unemployed able-bodied individuals to productive work. Eight hours a day (for real jocks), or at least 6 hours a day-- at minimum wage, this is the very essence of unskilled labor-- of pedaling, or spinning around on large playground merrygorounds, can procure a helluva lot of water for people who would otherwise be drinking liquid that might be anything up to and including raw untreated sewage.
Such devices would be unnecessary to provide water for the White House, but would be a damn good addition to any dry-climate extension of human activity (e.g. a village in west sub-Saharan Africa. Or New Mexico!).
After the capital investment of dug wells and the stationary bicycles or merrygorounds, the enterprise would at some point obviate the necessity of paying the pedalers and spinners welfare payments, which are more societally expensive, none can deny, than paying otherwise unproductive people modest wages. Conservative anti-welfare-cheat enthusiasts should be pushing this idea to the max.
And of course, such devices can also be used to generate electricity. I do not have the figures before me to demonstrate how many pedalers it would take to make a typical 800MW nuclear plant superfluous and unnecessary, but put enough people to work generating electricity by pedal power or merrygoround power (put a heavy flywheel under the merrygoround, or on the pedaling device, and you have further enhanced the productivity of each person-hour of spinning around), and that's what you will have done:
replaced non-renewable energy procurement with an almost infinite amount of RENEWABLE energy, energy that does not depend on whether the wind is blowing or the sun shining. You go home and get a good night's sleep after your day on the merrygoround, and you have renewed your energy!
This is so simple that even a caveman could understand it. Let's take this a little farther, even. Rather than using PEOPLE for the spinners of the merrygoround, make much larger lazy susans (that's what they would look
like) and use horses, or cattle, or teams of oxen, to generate the movement necessary to generate the electricity or pump the water. You don't have to pay them, all you have to do is feed them and treat them humanely.
I will leave to the reader the argument over whether it would be more desirable, and/or cost-effective, to put human beings to work, or get real work out of the millions and millions of big, strong animals that are at this moment doing nothing but standing around in fields and pastures eating grass and waiting to be sold for slaughter in every state of the Union.
You see, if America's leaders had more vision than an old leather boot, they could see the efficacy and the societal benefit of industrial reorganization like this. But no, they're stuck in the old routine of making war on people so they can have those people's non-renewable resources. ("Hey, what's our oil doing underneath YOUR sand??")
However, maybe there's a truly enlightened capitalist entrepreneur out there with a few million to spend on drilling deep water wells (as one commenter at OpEd News said, the pronlem with windmills is that we have lowered the water table in so many places. The Ogallala Aquifer would be one such region) and emplacing the pumps necessary to draw drinking water by people power in hamlets and villages in the US where rural water service is difficult.
And maybe if this utterly exportable low technology were part of the Marshall Plan of renewable-energy infrastructural development we must immediately implement, we could send teams of installers into places in Africa and Asia where rural water service will never go and give the people the ability to draw their own water and generate their own electricity.
Leadership and vision for the energy future, rather than the military bootprint to hold onto the energy past, is what we need to be using in the world.
*************************************
A former Republican operative for three different Republican Administrations named Fred Karger has declared his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in 2012. He styles himself a gay conservative, but also a progressive Republican.
"I am a fighter and I am trying to change the Republican party and to open it up to everybody. If every gay person left the Republican party and went to the Democrats, that would be stupid. I believe in smaller federal government and personal responsibility just like my hero, Ronald Reagan," Karger has said.
However, except for his advocacy of same-sex marriage, there is very little to be found on his website, or in the press clippings there, about Fred Karger the politician or (lacking electoral experience) politician-wannabe, with less than two years before the 2012 election.
The best article I have been able to find on the fellow, by Paul Harris in /The Observer/, notes that, like Karl Rove, he is a disciple of Lee Atwater, the Republican dirty trickster, and has no regrets about his role in the 1988 campaign. Karger toured the country with relatives of the victims of Willie Horton, a murderer that 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis had released, and it was a factor in Dukakis' defeat.
I have spoken about the Republican disinformationist from DC that inhabits my political discussion board. "Trent" has already spilled the beans that what Fred Karger is doing at college campuses is youth voter registration.
My speculation that Karger is acting as a stalking horse, running a bait-and-switch operation to register thousands and thousands of young gays and other students who then will vote (many for their first times) Republican in 2012, whoever the nominee is-- and it won't be Karger-- gains more credibility.
In one statement on his website, Karger claims that he expects to raise
$5 million for his campaign. Heck, the Swift Boaters operated on about
$6 million. And the composition of an ad that he used in Iowa says serious money, with up-to-standard graphics.
$5 mill for a secondary-scale operation, legal risk free, that might generate another million Republican voters if Karger does his Judas-goat job well and devotedly? Seems like a very good deal for the GOP. That million voters -- half that-- might win two or three close states, and put a Republican candidate over the top in a close election with low voter turnout that has been depressed by a constant drumbeat of Republican negative campaigning and outright spreading of lies.
What brilliant strategy! These freakin Democrats had better wake up!
I have been exhaustively through Fred Karger's website. There are no position papers.
There is nothing but his advocacy of gay marriage that would indicate anything progressive about Fred Karger.
And besides that, he and the Log Cabin Republicans are allies. They are fighting Mitt Romney over his flipflops on gay rights. Any friend of the Log Cabin Republicans, no matter how Arab-style enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend, is not to be trusted. And Karger's relationship to them dates from the 1990s.
Just the fact that Fred Karger, a Republican without a snowflake's chance in hell to win the nomination of his party, rather than a gay Democratic congressman, say, with at least a party behind him that backs gay rights (however lukewarmly), is the one making this run that one article compares to that of U.S. Rep. Shirley Chisholm demonstrates another point I have been making from the time of the first DADT Repeal White-House-fence Chain-up, when it became really clear to me what the game was: that the Republican Party, with brilliant strategy and tactics, has hijacked the GTBL civil rights movement, and for reasons that I still haven't gotten to the bottom of, gay and gay-ally Democrats, liberals, progressives, have allowed them to do so without any audible protest.
One of Trent's disingenuous Democrat-bashing memes is that a progressive Democrat should challenge President Obama from the left for the 2012 nomination. The best thing that could happen for gays would be for an actual progressive gay candidate to challenge Fred Karger, and challenge him pointedly in the places where Karger is picking up "low hanging
fruit"-- naive young undergrads-- for the Republican Party.
William P. Homans aka Watermelon Slim
Clarksdale, MS
Back To List
April 19, 2011
After the trip to Clarksdale this past week, I had to have a Kalimba!
Got it ordered today!
Regards,
Dennis in Oklahoma.........
Back To List
April 2, 2011
Howdy Blues Fans,
Today will have a spot of temporary sadness in it. 3 hours from now I'll be in the church down on Ashton Avenue where we will be gathered for Pinetop Perkins's funeral. Like at the last funeral I attended here-- "Mr. Tater", Foster Wiley-- the deceased had absolutely nothing to regret. He was the boss. The Blues Foundation stopped giving him Handy Awards and just named the category-- Best Piano-- after him. I was honored to have Pinetop come play with me and The Workers the last time we played at Ground Zero. I got to bid him Happy Birthday and chat a little last year at the 97th anniversary of his birth. We will not forget you, Pine!
I got up to Canada for the first time March 4 and 5. Upon my arrival in Winnipeg the noght of the 3rd, who should show up to be my transportation but Big Dave McLean! This multi-award-winning icon of Canada's blues scene and his truckdriving bassplayer was going to be co-headlining with me (he called it "opening for", but ta hellwit that...). The next day, after a good sleep in a great Canadian hotel, we took off for Kenora Ontario, 3 hours east of Winnipeg. The Lake of the Woods Hotel's festival was on, and Big Dave and I were playing at a place called Shooters. What kin I say? Full house, Canadians are aces over! My only regret about Kenora was that it was scheduled first and Winnipeg after, instead of the other way around, because I then would have stayed a couple extra days and gone ice fishing. We resolve to do that next time I'm way north of the border in the winter!
From Kenora it was on to Winnipeg. I have referred to the High Lonesome Club, now going under the name of Times Change, a long time institution of Canadian music. I live a little more than a mile from Red's the premier juke joint in Clarksdale, Mississippi, which is the ground zero of the Blues. The High Lonesome fills the same spot in at least Manitoba, and as far as I can see (and I've done some Canadian traveling, as you know), in all of Canada, you won't find another such famous, notorious juke joint. And the fans sure nuff got their money's worth. After Dave and........... had given them an hour's worth of straight-no-chaser Canadian blues, I took the stage, and ended up playing four hours of music, with a bit of a break between super-long sets. It's nice when I've got that much in the tank AND everybody wants to hang around!
Back to Clarksdale the next day, where I busied myself with home improvements (been working on my kitchen) and getting ready for the antiwar and Support-Bradley-Manning actions in Washington DC and Quantico March 19 and 20. Here is my after-action report, as submitted to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War on March 23:
On Thursday the 17th, Army Iraq vet Zach Choate and Coast Guard vet Ethan Crowell (who served in SE Asia) drove up from Baton Rouge, after Zach had picked Ethan up in Mobile. We took off from Clarksdale. We hammered it in about 16 hours, 955 miles, getting into Washington early into the afternoon. After a few misdirections by our GPS, who was known as either "Linda" or "Shutup, bitch," we pulled into the Harrington Hotel. As soon as we got into a room, it was time to go to the big music-and-briefing meeting at the coffee/internet bar, Busboys and Poets.
I was able to give people an inspiring moment when movement musician and band-leader-for-the-night Margaret Flowers brought me to the stage to sing my song, "Blues for Howard" about Howard Zinn, with the band, that had actually practiced it!
I assured them that the spirit of my dear comrade Howard was with us all, just as it was in the last communication Howard ever sent me. In that letter, Howard Zinn sent me $1000 and told me to do what was best with it. I gave it to IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) toward their WSI (Winter Soldier Investigation) in Austin. After some other magical, if rough, musical moments with the band over the duration of the meeting, I finished the show with Sweet Home Chicago (honest, it was on their set list!). Tip o the hat to y'all up in VVAW National.
A beer or two was had at Harry's, at the Harrington, and we got a good night's sleep. In the morning, after a good breakfast served by sympathetic people, it was off to the site, where everyone busied themselves about all the things that are required for a good demonstration. Stage erection, literature ready, PA system there and working on time (as a musician, I'll tell you that one's real important, lol), tables set in place.
It is the same in the movement as it is in the music-festival business:
the movement culture sustains itself through volunteers and volunteerism.
The speeches of Daniel Ellsberg, Chris Hedges and probably Ann Wright are all on Youtube now, so I won't summarize them. My remarks, representing VVAW, on the morning of Saturday, March 19, were short, and directed to President Obama.
I noted at the beginning that the President was not currently there and listening, but urged whoever was listening to take notice. I declared that several things having to do with the wars in Afghanistan (and Iraq, whether they will still call it a war or not) were unacceptable.
"First, bankrupting our children and grandchildren with the need for ever more deficit spending to cover two wars-- economically unacceptable!
Militarily overextending US forces for years, to the point that there would not be sufficient forces to bring to bear in the event of attack by a potential real enemy like North Korea-- militarily unacceptable!
And the creation of more and more combat veterans, maimed in body and mind, in a war that has no real prospect to end-- socially and morally unacceptable!
Mr. Obama, these started as Bush's wars. They are your wars now, and I can't believe I'm having to say that. Why not bring our troops home and let the country reap the peace dividend of the net difference between logistically supporting two wars, and threatening in other theatres, and bringing the troops lunch on the southern border?
I have a suggestion for you: why don't you bring our troops home and station them on the southern border if you want to satisfy both right and left at the same time? If you provide a military mission that honorably defends America, you will never lack for recruits.
A US combat role in Afghanistan through at least 2014? Utterly unacceptable!
Mr. Obama, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War are back in Washington, as we were in 1971 when the man in the White House was Richard Nixon.
We're saying now exactly what we were saying then:
Bring 'em home. Bring our brothers home. Bring our brothers and sisters
home-- NOW."
That night, there were IVAW events which raised significant money for Operation Recovery. This reporter sat back in room 533 at the Harrington and played his guitar, thinking to go to sleep early-- big day tomorrow in Quantico-- but ended up doin' a little concert for VVAWs Willie Hager and Marcia Westbrook, as well as former VVAW brother Scott Camil, and some of their friends from Florida, and some other folks, we had the room pretty full pretty late. I knew Zach, Ethan and I were going to highball back south as soon as we were done in Quantico, so I had to pull out the instruments sometime, lol.
We got to Quantico Marine Base, south of Washington in Virginia, early Sunday afternoon. There were somewhere pushing 1000 people at the first action in Washington-- probably 800-- and my estimate of the crowd which eventually assembled on the land across from the Iwo Jima Memorial was also around that.
I would say that there was more press at the second action than the first, though brother Ward Reilly says he saw plenty at the first. One thing about a world where Japan's reactors are threatening to melt down and the US is projecting military force into Libya-- which they did, it is not to be forgotten, on the very day we are deploring in infamy, the invasion of Iraq in 2003!-- antiwar demonstrations might easily get lost in the shuffle!
Zach Choate was first to speak. The 10th Mountain division turret gunner was given the Purple Heart when he suffered injuries from an IED attack.
He resurrected all the ghosts of Operation Dewey Canyon III when he asked, "What does this Constitution mean, when Bradley Manning is being treated like this?" He tossed the pocket copy of the US Constitution to the ground.
"What do all these ribbons mean? They're worthless, if he's being treated this way." And with that ripped medals, Combat Action Badge, Unit Commendation and name tag off his dress greens, leaving nothing on the shirt but a "Free Bradley Manning" button. Zach had to really work hard to get through his speech, but he had his brothers standing behind him. This is a young man with a great soul.
Among the speakers was MIT grad student David House, who somehow has been able to see Bradley Manning. This is a spectacular looking and speaking young "computer scientist", as he identified himself. I suggested to him that he was a special person for Bradley Manning, and to keep on being there for him.
Eventually, after I had played Taps, Choate, Ellsberg, Wright, Camil and several others were able to go and lay flowers at the Memorial. Or-- no, wait a minute, at the last moment, the police, or the Marines, or the
DoD-- never was clear about that-- denied the representative group access to the grounds to actually lay the flowers on the Memorial.
The flowers had to be laid through the fence. Rather significant symbolism, I thought, but there was no help for it. Eventually, Ellsberg, Wright and 28 others were arrested by the Virginia State Police for sitting down in the road opposite the Memorial.
I have written at length on /agents provocateurs/, and their role in the furtherance of right-wing policy throughout my 40 years of political history. It was, in fact, in March of 1971, while loading wetcast concrete forms in one of my various dead-end jobs of the early 70s, that my ruminations on the war were reaching a climax. A month later I would be in Washington for my first great moratorium march. I was a VVAW the next month, and I'm a Life Member today.
It is up to those of us who have the hard, first-hand experience (one defendant in the Gainesville Eight Trial was present at both actions, and arrested-- voluntarily this time-- in DC) with agents provocateurs to police the movement. At the Quantico action we identified two police posing as protesters, circulating through the crowd-- big, burly, buzz-cut fellows, couldn't have been more obvious.
A few people loudly baited them. The more serious among us surveilled them. Pictures exist, digitally and in people's minds. Those two fellas will never be effective undercover in the antiwar movement. Job done, even though there might have been more of them that we didn't catch.
Personally, and as a Vietnam Veteran Against the War, I was honored to speak from the same platform as Daniel Ellsberg, Ralph Nader and Col.
(Ret.) Ann Wright Saturday morning before being arrested at the White House fence again. Ellsberg and Wright were arrested for committing civil disobedience twice in successive days, first in Washington, and then in front of the Iwo Jima Memorial, at Quantico.
I was honored to have joined Ellsberg in arrest twice now, though my musical role, and my security role, were more important at Quantico. We had to get home, and could not spend the night in a Virginia jail, so we busted ass back for Mississippi, or in Zach Choate's case, Baton Rouge.
He oughta be as far south as Jackson now, on the Blues Highway (US 61 runs right from Clarksdale to Baton Rouge).
*******************************
I will be back in Washington again. The wars are not going away.
And no one protest is going to make them. This is not Egypt or Tunisia, or Libya.
The political, social and economic system of the US is built with quantums more redundancy of responsibility and chain of command than it is in those countries. And people are completely the thralls of media.
There are no peasants in America; even the illiterate have the boob tube. All the better to behaviorally modify you with, my dear!?
And the thralls of Mubarak-- or, more desperately, of Qaddafi-- had really reached the end of their rope. No matter that we are foundering, as a nation, in a sea of red ink, the American people (and they are encouraged to do it by saturation advertizing of consumer goods, and of capitalistic opportunity) continue to placidly believe, on the one hand, that they really do still own their own, and the world's, destiny. "Not just survive, but thrive," goes the slogan of one large investment firm.
We have not felt the pinch of an economy sufficiently desperate and a government sufficiently oppressive simultaneously to make the middle class vote in an enlightened manner, i.e., run against and throw out all the bums responsible for our messes (very crudely stated). And we certainly have not reached the beyond threadbare shape of a Libyan society that had to resort to arms against the longest-ruling dictator (oh, that one on the island doesn't count).
I don't know what it will take to truly threaten the American people into taking to the streets, into being a society in which being in "the movement" is a reality for a majority, instead of what I acknowledge I am one of the commited hard core of, a relatively tiny minority. I would question whether more than a few million people in the US-- maybe 10?-- have even done so much as to send a check to Vets for Peace, or VVAW, IVAW, ANSWER, March Forward!, or any of the liberal orgs like MoveOn, PDA. etc.
As for real activists-- well, I'm purty sure that nationwide we've got hundreds of thousands of people who will stand on the corner with a "Stop the War" sign, or will go to a demonstration if it's not too far away.
People who are actually ready to do civil disobedience (and this has been the civilest disobedience I ever took part in; the cops, Capitol and Park primarily, were exemplary in Washington), are probably in the thousands, maybe 10s of 1000s nationwide, but it's had to tell that, because the people just haven't been pinched enough.
However, those numbers could go up with stimuli as direct as $5.00 at the pump, or as indirect as an unseen cloud of radiation from Japan!
An aside on police relations:
The police-- at least the local ones-- do not miss the reference when you mention Wisconsin. They know that while the cops and firemen were exempted from Scotty Walker's "budget-balancing" end to collective bargaining by public employees THIS TIME, they are definitely under the gun. I would say that relations between protesters in Washington and police have never been so good! We are literally being asked for consultation as to what we intend to do, and they are allowing us to do it. Of course, we won't be lulled, but I've had first-hand contact with one high-ranking police person, and he was very cordial.
Along the way I committed a funny tactical error: I had myself all nicely chained up to the White House fence when one of the cops came by and told us that the arrest area would be some distance down from where I was chained. So after thinking about it, I concluded that I was going to have to unchain and re-chainup further down the fence.
Wrong move. As I was taking my leisurely time (seeing as how the police were being so nice) finding another spot, the captain supervising the entire police presence tapped me on the shoulder and told me they couldn't just let me do that. "You were already chained up, you had your chance," he said, shaking his head.
He was cordial, I didn't plead much with him. He said something quite cool too, as I was removing the chain and giving it and the lock to him
personally: "I'm just trying to protect my people the way I know you'd be protecting yours." Given my proactive attitude toward security, he was righter than he knew.
VVAWs present included Bill Perry, Ward Reilly, Al Kovnat, Doc Bjornson, Pat McCann, Marcia Westbrook, Willie Hager, Sam Adams, and a whole raft of brothers from the old days who wear the VFP colors too-- but there were certainly 30 wearing ours. I am encouraged (though only slightly so; I would have sworn the good weather would have brought out more "sunshine patriot" movement supporters. Those who came were dern sure enthusiastic, and many constructive contacts were made!
Others will undoubtedly report, but this'll be the longest and most personal of 'em, I'll wager.
Solidarity,
Bill Homans
VVAW Life Member,
Mississippi contact
**************************************************
I just got back from Key West, Florida. Last Friday, I flew into West Palm Beach and the next night played a rousing, warmly received gig at a really lovely place, the Bamboo Room, in Lake Worth, Florida. Now, Florida is fine any time for me, but in particular I like going south in the months before April! And I hope everybody's enjoying all those CDs, there were several people who bought multiples. I will be back down doing this gig again, thank you very much, Mr. Donnie Becker and all his staff for a top quality gig, including the best sound of the year.
And there seems to be nothing in the way of doing both it and the following show, which was the next night in Key West. I have wanted to play the Green Parrot for decades. Most people know I am a Shakespeare buff, having read about everything the Bard ever wrote, including all his plays. Well, I have also read the complete works of Ernest Hemingway, who used to drink and hang out at the Parrot, which is about three blocks from his house. The house, BTW, is now a museum, and you will love not only perusing Hemingway's effects, but socializing with the couple of dozen cats that make the place home. Hemingway was a cat fancier.
I quoted from my copy of "For Whom The Bell Tolls" in the course of my show. Like Hemingway's protagonist in that book, Robert Jordan, mortally wounded in the Spanish Civil War, but with thoughts collected, waiting for the enemy to arrive, I can never feel more alive than when full wilfully achieving my destiny, which quite clearly has involved (does
today) pouring out all the art-- hopefully, beauty, but if not, at least
lessons-- I can for all who might benefit from or enjoy it.
Thanks again to John Vagnoni, and Beaver, Bill, and everyone else that was so dern nice to me, and furthermore let me stay in their charming band house, behind the club, for two extra days, until I was finished going fishing with local restaurateur Ken Tomita Tuesday night. We did not catch any very large fish. However, we got enough red snapper and grouper that by the time I got back to the Parrot to sleep before driving my rental car back to PBI Airport, I had to unbutton my pants!
Well, I'm showered and shaved, ready to go to Pinetop's funeral. They tell me there'll be a party later, bet I go. I hope to see lots of you at the Juke Joint Festival, which will be coming up the 15-16 of this month. Come on down and get a big dose of the blues with us in Clarksdale!
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
April 1, 2011
Just got off of a flight (Atlanta to Memphis) and "Slim" was seated next to me on the flight. It was a joy meeting him and my husband and I are
going to make the trip to Clarksdale. Maybe we'll show up for the Juke Joint Festival.
Take care,
Jan Wright
Back To List
March 1, 2011
This blog entry, rather long awaited, I guess, is dedicated to Canada, first of all. I have included an article below which illustrates much of what I have been telling people around the world, and especially here "down south", for years.
I also want to say that especially for those who have gone to Facebook and seen my rant about it, and have come here, I am sorry I haven't gotten around to blogging lately, but I do so appreciate your coming to see what I have to say here, on this simple soundboard. I don't want to have to OPERATE Facebook, and as everyone must be aware, it is designed specifically so that a user gets entwined in a steadily widening and increasing number of computer operations.
Furthermore I want to say that, in general, I am still in resting mode.
I had one great tour-- Landry's, in Fort Smith; Knucklehead's, in Kansas City; The Blue Door, in OKC; and the Wintery Winds Series, in Norman,
OK-- January 13-16. All you folks who shared yourselves with me, I'm looking forward to seeing each and every one of you again.
Was sorry not to see Terry and Linda this trip, must have been out on the road. Safe trip, 10-4, y'all? Likewise, Mary Baranski in OKC, hope you're doing fine.
last weekend, Feb. 19, I played in the Jackson Room at the Marriott Hotel in Memphis as part of the Folk Alliance Convention. I understand that over 200 original-music acts played in Memphis from Wednesday through Saturday. Among others, I ran into my old compadre Ray Bonneville, one of the great artists whose name I dropped in my letter responding to Shakura S'aida's article (see below) that Bluewax's online moderators apparently-- mystifyingly-- have censored. Also Bob Gronko, my brother from Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), was at the convention, so I even got a chance to rap a little about national-office politics.
I hope everybody voted for the Watermelon Slim and the Workers DVD "Live From Ground Zero" in Clarksdale, I think you have through 2/28 to do it, if you are a Blues Foundation member. Heck, I just hope you liked it!
Me and Super Chikan have a new release coming out sometime around May 1.
It will be called "Okiesippi Blues", and we are the only players on it.
It is a unique record, a couple of obscure covers, but almost all original material from me and the most distinctive Mississippi bluesman plying the trade today. I am continuing my successful relationship with Mr. Fred Litwin of Ontario, and his record label, NorthernBlues Music. I want to remind y'all that without him, Chris Hardwick, who signed me when I was a $10.00 driver-laborer, Michael McClune, who helped me spread public awareness of the spotted, interesting life I'm lucky to have survived, lol-- with help from others like Betsie Brown of Blind Raccoon, Mako Funasaka of Canada, and John Adams of England-- and Intrepid Artists, who have made sure that I've been able to travel around much of the world, and be a cultural ambassador, I could never have accomplished any of what I have, unexpectedly and now late in life.
God bless you all!
Back To List
December 9, 2010
A Holiday message
The Workers, BTW-- Ronnie Mac McMullen, Cliff Belcher, Chris Stovall Brown and me-- are taking a break from touring in 2011, as I will be taking a sabbatical to recover my health completely, do some touring with my Clarksdale neighbor James "Super Chikan" Johnson, play some solo shows (and probably a few duos with Ronnie Mac, my favorite rythym guitarist ever), and concentrate on PAINTING for a year. Also, Super Chikan and I will be releasing a CD this spring on the NorthernBlues label, and we are calling it "Okiesippi Blues." It's "in the can". Watch for /that/ in your favorite record stores.
Also, you vinyl fans, I will be releasing a six-song LP album (!) I recorded back in October at the famous Blue Heaven Studios up in Salina.
This studio is the balls, y'all. Chad Kassem and company has it going ON. Two years ago, I was supposed to travel to Salina from Okie City one winter day and record with St. Louis blues phenom Marquis Knox and Michael Burks. Unfortunately, that huge ice storm happened exactly at the wrong time, and the ol' truck driver wasn't driving 200-odd miles due northbound into the teeth of that, so I missed out on being part of a great record! Marquis and I hope to collaborate on another record in future!
Other recording projects under consideration are duo collaborations with Mississippi bluesmen T-Model Ford and Robert "Wolfman" Belfour, and with my longtime collaborator, and the mother of my daughter Jessie, with whom I just spent a quiet and loving Thanksgiving time, blueswoman Honour Havoc. And there are at least 3 or 4 others besides that. I've got so many good places to record, and so many great people to record with, that no one record company can keep up with me!
Then, in November or so of 2011, The Workers and I will be recording our next CD (haven't got a name for that one yet), probably in Norman at our usual recording studio, Bell Labs in Norman, and will plan for a spring 2012 release. There will be a few surprise guest stars appearing on that one, but I don't want to spill the beans on who. Then we will be back on the touring road behind that, and we are excited to do it!
I want all my friends in Europe-- The Workers visited England, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, France, Croatia, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and Spain this year-- Australia and Canada (Thorold and Gravenhurst, Ontario finished off the 2010 touring season, what a ball we had in the Great North Woods!) what a blessing, privilege and honor it was to share our music with y'all. Especially we want to thank our tour guides Dannhait (ah, begorrah, what a gal), Fabrizio, Beppe, Goren (I always have a hard time keeping BJORN and GOREN straight), Bytten, Birgit and Pauline for the great service you all rendered us (super-especially up in Norway/Denmark when I almost died of the cellulitic infection I had to bring across the pond in order that the show could go on). A fine time was had by all, and we hope you enjoyed our company as much as we enjoyed yours!
I am far enough behind the late summer and fall's events that I know I am going to forget a bunch of people and places, and I apologize to all for being a lazy-ass and not keeping it current like a good journalist should. But some of the highlights of the time between our return from Cognac till we finished up at Peter's Place in Gravenhurst (and these will not be in chronological order, but in the order that my brain remembers them): on the evening of the National Steering Committee Meeting of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which I attended this year, we played at Rosa's Lounge, in Chicago, and who should be there waiting for us but Muddy Waters alumni Willie "Big Eyes" Smith and Bob Stroger!
That's not just a tour highlight, that's a LIFE highlight that two immortals of the blues like them would take their time to come out and listen to-- and PLAY WITH-- our little group from Oklahoma! Besides them, Chicago blues stalwarts Mary Hall and Chicago Bob also showed up and sang and played with us. This was a magic night, and everyone within range of this blog are square for not showing up, lol.
Chenango and Buffalo, NY, St. Louis, MO, Bethlehem, PA (where we re-established ties with our great fans the Kelchners and Kunkles, who all later came down and visited me in Clarksdale-- that blues tour they got to make with me deserves its own separate blog, but I'll plod on with general news for the moment), Lawrenceville PA with our friends Dexter and Michelle at the Lakeview Lodge, Salmon Arm, BC-- saw numerous ospreys flying, fishing and working on their nests-- and both golden and bald eagles, what a thrill, that's the most giant hunting birds I've ever seen on one trip. Kitchener, ON-- what is there to say? We've played the Kitchener Festival more times than any other blues festival we've ever played. The Southside Shuffle in Toronto. Dern, don't the Canadians know how to run a freakin FESTIVAL! Greeenville, MS's Bues Heritage Festival, and right "up in hyeah" with Greg Johnson at the Blue Door in dear old Okie City. Me and The Workers are so blessed to have such friends!
And it was super to get back and see Frank, Merl Zuel, and all of our friends at Knuckleheads in KCMO (everyone was asking how Michael Newberry was doing), and to tear up Dinosaurs BBQ in Rochester, where I presented the club with the most distinctive mojo hand I ever gave
anybody-- one of my coproliths-- a piece of petrified dinosaur doodoo (though frankly, I'm not sure, it may have actually been from a woolly mammoth or mastodon, but I was told it was dinosaur shit these many years ago when I got a few of these fossils in New Mexico, and I am unaware that mammoths ever got that far south. I knew they'd come in handy some day[img]http://www.websmileys.com/sm/obscene/eck13.gif[/img])! It's been a very good year for me as far as finding fossils! I have two outstanding, and VERY old, specimens in my mojo bag now.
BTW, I had two significant thefts happen this year, the second in Brussels, waiting for our train in front of the station. The thief apparently got behind all four of us, and the only thing stolen was my gig bag, and in it, along with most of my harps, my SM57 harp mike and all my cords, was my mojo bag (plus about $4 in American change). The thief probably looked at that stuff and tossed it all in a river somewhere. I've never been one to wish anyone ill, but when he or she got those mojo hands (including my second watermelon mahogany nut husk-section totem from Priscilla Sieleman of the Blues Foundation), there's no telling what the magic in them may have done. Tsk...
One sad note: "Mr. Tater", Foster Wiley, one of Clarksdale's blues institutions, died at 63 in September, after a long battle with kidney problems. At the memorial service at Crossroads Studios here, there were almost no tears shed, because everyone knew that Tater had completely lived out his most interesting life, and those who knew him best asssured us all that Tater had no regrets. R.I.P. Tater, we'll never forget.
I know, soo-o-o may places and people, I don't know whom I am forgetting. But "thank you"-- grazie-- merci-- gracias-- are the most important words in no matter what language. I hope everyone will have a very, very merry Christmas and Happy New Year. And in closing, I just want to special-specially thank Speedy West for being the musical impresario he's been in Oklahoma City for so many years. Everybody give Speedy big, big hugs and kisses!
The-e-e.. the-e-e... That's all, folks!
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
November 23, 2010
Hello Watermelon Slim,
I am the Global Moderator of www.bluesforum.com and I am sending you this note because your cd Ringers is running for the Bluesforum.com CD Award 2010. The direct link to the Award topic is at the bottom line of this mail.
Bluesforum.com is a blues community on the web. Bluesforum.com has over 300 registered members and a lot more unregistered readers. In Augustus there were over 40.000 page views.
On behalf of the Bluesforum.com team,
El Mano,
elmano@bluesforum.com
Moderator Bluesforum.com & Bluesforum.nl
Direct link to our CD Award list on Bluesforum.com
Bluesforum.com on myspace
Bluesforum.com on Twitter
Back To List
November 20, 2010
*From Charlotte to Clarksdale *
Recently I persuaded my boyfriend to take the pilgrimage with me to The Crossroads. For many years I've wanted to visit Clarksdale, Mississippi and hear the authentic bluesmen or women before they are no longer walking this earth. I'm convinced that there are a few still out there who do what they do because this is who they are. Sadly, this is literally a dying great American art form and one that needs be truly best experienced in a live setting deep in the Delta. These artists allow us to reach within ourselves to find and feel remnants of experiences we may not quite yet know what to do with. Just by being in their presence and witnessing their craft, we have the opportunity to process our own personal psychic debris as well as a collective consciousness of life experiences known as The Blues.
We traveled to Clarksdale during non festival season. I didn't want to go when all the tourists where flocking but also wasn't prepared for how few live performances and clubs are operational on a year round basis.
Ground Zero was closed for a private party and folks in town kept saying that Red's wasn't having any music that night. My hopes and dreams for hearing the real blues were quickly diminishing. We elected to go have the Red's experience, live music or not. I'd for years heard that this was the place in town to hear the real thing. Red and assorted doormen greeted us enthusiastically and got us two of the biggest beers I've ever seen. Secretly, I was hoping that someone would stagger in on their way back from another gig and decide to sit down and play. After a few rounds (of said very big beers), Red sidled up to me wearing sunglasses and an ingratiating crooked smile, "Watermelon Slim is here tonight," he sneered happily, "he's a gonna play in a little while." My blues prayers where finally answered as Slim proceeded to belt out stories and songs one after another complete with slide guitar riffs and harp accompaniment. With all the enthusiasm of playing Carnegie Hall, he kept the diverse and intimate audience completely entertained and fixated on his every move for what seemed like at least 60 minutes or so. (Red was still serving the very big beers in between so time is sketchy here!)
Bill aka Watermelon Slim was kind enough to let us take pictures later. So, many thanks Mr. Homan or Mr. Slim or whoever you are - for saving our Delta Blues trip and allowing us the pleasure of hearing the real deal while we visited Clarksdale. We finally got what we came for. Thanks again for the music and the mayhem! Our odyssey would not have been the same without your generosity and hospitality.
Your friends in Charlotte,
Rebecca & Richard
Back To List
October 31, 2010
I enjoyed your tribute to the folks that have served our country at the Crossroads in Salina. I got to thinking about the vets I work with at the Dole VA hospital in Wichita. If you come into town sometime would it be possible to maybe come out and talk to the guys and play a little
if you want to.
Thanks for all you do.
Back To List
October 25, 2010
Wanted to thank Watermelon Slim for the excellent show at the Crossroads in Salina,KS. Truly enjoyed the delightful chit chat prior to his breakfast the next day. Have seen him several times now and he always is the "Real Deal" just like the first time that I seen him live. Wish that all of Slims Mojo hands will come back to him soon.
Good luck and good times on the road to you all till we meet again.
Sincerely Mary C
Back To List
September 25, 2010
Hola Blues Fans,
I left Hopson's after picking and ginning-- I mean, Hopson's IS a converted cotton gin, but I did mean GRINNING-- and gettin a l'il high with a few friends, I stopped into Red's. I figgered I'd drive by and see if there was anything going on here on a Saturday night (snicker).
When I got there, I looked at the door as I parked my van and the sign on the door in Red's all-caps distressed scrawl read, "T-Model Ford".
"The Tail-Dragger" and "The Ladies' Man" are two the names that have adhered to him for decades, besides his standard sobriquet.
T-Model turned 90 in June, had a stroke in July and got married the same month to his longtime um, at least girlfriend and caretaker, who must be no less than 20 years his junior. I spaced on it, never left the house (any day I don't drive anywhere is a day I don't spend money) and missed the birthday party!
T-Model was in his groove when I walked in. I was listening to his guitar and voice to see if there were any diminutions due to the stroke.
In particular I was listening for weaknesses or variations in the quirky riffs in which, to the trained ear, he is extremely consistent. There were none. His youngest grandson (he's got grandkids old enough to be parents of other grandkids-- Collin-- already got a nickname, "Stud"-- is 12, and is his drummer. The kid knows his granddad's music, and besides that has a real flair for adjusting to not only granddad's rythmic idiosyncrasies but those of others playing with him.
T-Model Ford at 90 is the youngest of the oldest three bluesmen still working, the others being Pinetop Perkins, at 97 still gigging, and Honey Boy Edwards, 95, whom Watermelon Slim and the Workers had the honor of following at the Heritage Festival in Greenville, Mississippi a week ago.
T-Model had never mentioned in the past that he would like to take a break. But that's what he did when I came over to shake hands and be there for him. So while he never moved from his chair, never even put his guitar down, me and Stud and a local guitar player ripped Arthur Crudup's [i]Look Over Yonder's Wall[/i] and Muddy's [i]Tomorrow Night[/i] that was one of my mentor Earring George Mayweather's signature songs. The local guy was right in tune and cadence, and Stud plays drums like he was born to play the blues. It was the best blues being played on the planet at that moment.
The international crowd (I chatted eagerly with two really rugged Australians, a couple of merchant seamen who happen to love the blues, seeing as how I'll be off to Australia in a couple of days) whistled and hollered their appreciation. I figured if he took 15 minutes, he'd want to play. Of course I wouldn't want the old boy to overwork himself.
"You're not done yer are you?" T-Model asked me, as I replaced the mike in its stand.
"I hope you're going to... play some more,"
I told him I would hang around and play it when I felt it, and went outside for a smoke and a plate of grilled smoked pork chops. I hadn't eaten meat in two weeks, I think, and tonight I know I ate a pound of well-smoked and simmered pork. I went back in and got a drink. I reflected that that's really the first thought I had when I decided to take my route back from Hopson's by Red's-- I feel like the first drink of Whiskey I had had for the last two weeks. It's usually either shine or Evan below the bar from Red. Tonight it was Jack Daniels. That's T-Model's drink, and stroke or no, he had a pint, 2/3 empty, of JayDee sitting on the low table next to him.
T-Model was howling. The strength with which he still plays and sings remind me of the oldest bluesman ever to be recorded, Nathan Beauregard, who was born into slavery and played at 109 years old at the Memphis Blues Festival in 1968. Some people claim he was a decade younger, but that still would make him 99, and Pinetop's got two more years to catch him, and three more to pass. We were creating magic, creating history together. We played and sang "Somebody's Knockin' On My Door" by The Wolf, and Hoochie Koochie Man" by Willie Dixon through Muddy. People were hollerin and screamin and havin a ball!
Red happens to have cancelled a performers tomorrow night, and so I'm going back down there and do the gig. Clarksdale's got a lot of people, and fans, through here right about now. I'll make $200+ plus CD sales tomorrow night. I toasted the appreciative crowd with the last half ounce of my Jack, said good night to Stud, and slipped on back to the hacienda.
Latah,
Slim
Back To List
September 9, 2010
Thanks for coming back to little Rock on September 16th. Looking forward to seeing ya�ll again. Last time I enjoyed your music was at the BMA�s in Memphis.
Back To List
August 23, 2010
Hi there !!,l'm a spanish fan.Last july l drove 500 kms to Cognac (France),to see you performing for my first time.Was great,the best show we (my wife and me) have ever seen,we could talk to you(in spanish,english and italian,with my wife),drink (sorry watermelon,there is no wiskey in cognac) and l gave you a present,my trucker cap,and l can say that you are as good on the stage as out of it.
We love country music (we were in Nashville TN,for holidays,in january 2007,where l bought that cap...) and blues,and you are perfect mix of bouth,but live is so much better,what a wonderful show!!!
You are an ex-trucker,you know,like me ,what is long time driving and been alone,thinking about your own troubles and with the company of the music.l use to play the blues harp while l listen to my favotites songs (some of them are yours...).You know european truckers we love american trucks,drive one of them is a dream for every one of us (maybe there are common dreams for american and european truckers,but l�m talking about things to do with the dress on...).
American roots music makes me feel so good,l love slide guitar,dobro,pedal steel guitar,blues harp...l think in other life l was born in there.
Just want to tell you that was a very special concert,because you are a special bluesman for me.You told me some words (in french) when you was on the stage,and l will never forget that,so l hope you remember your spanish friend when you see that cap.
l hope see you again,in spain,france,usa or anywhere...who knows.
Take care.
Back To List
August 23, 2010
Hey. If you would, will you thank Watermelon for a great concert yesterday in Chenango County for me? Absolutely fantastic. Come on back anytime. Thanks again.
Chris Conant - Binghamton, NY
Back To List
August 10, 2010
I wrote last year to tell slim how mugsy loves watermelon even when he is being bad we can say watermelon slim and he runs to the ipod.
Well could not wait to see you live...and darn it...you are coming to lexington michigan Sunday and I am at the art fait there this weekend so I can' make the concert I am sooooooo bummed......hope you come to Mi again soon...it was my first art show.....there we were sitting and saw the signs you were coming tommorow!!! I will be at the art show all day and it is an hour drive 1 way for me...so Mugsy(the dog} and sugarbaby his love and sicdekick will need to peeeeeeeeeeeeee real bad by then
please!!!!!!!!!!!!! come around again soon and good luck!!!!!!
Sue Papciak and mugsy and sugarbaby
Back To List
August 9, 2010
I live in Paris, France, so... why don't you go in France one time. I'm sure it's a damn good idea !!!
"Bravo" for your great music feeling and say hello to the team.
So long
Ivan Magot
Back To List
August 4, 2010
Hi there SLIM
What a performance at Cognac!! I wasn't a big blues fan before you popped up on main stage, but now i wanna go out n buy harmonicas and allsorts.. Nice French by the way =).
Thanks for a great experience
Adam, Alex and Jamie from Durham, UK
Back To List
August 4, 2010
Well, I'm back from tour: Canada, Italy, Switzerland, Croatia, back to Italy, and finally a triumphant stay in France. My French is in very good shape, and my Italian is much improved.
I wouldn't write about any of this stuff, if it was not that I am a public figure-- B-List, perhaps, but what I do is, undeniably, current events. I am an international cultural ambassador, besides just being a bluesman/recording artist. I speak and sing to at least 10s of 1000s of people every tour, in several languages. I know there are people who will say, "that ain't jack shit," but then my response will be, "yeah, well tell me what Keith Urban Kenny Chesney, Gene Simmons or Ozzy Osborne (to say absolutely nothing of Ted the shit-dauber Nugent) have ever said that MEANT jack shit."
Highlights of this two-week tour: put the mojo to chauffeured me around in a Cadillacthe sky and stopped the rain in Canada, Switzerland and France. Switzerland might have been called a partial, but I held it off until after the festival was done for the night, then it poured. My Canadian buddy Bobby Joseph chauffeured me around in a Cadillac, my friends at the Stone Croft Inn in Windsor provided the usual outstanding hospitality, and Bobby even took the time to whup me in golf. The back nine was getting better-- two bogies out of the last three holes (only played 12, had to leave for soundcheck after the 12th hole)-- but I see I must get out and practice a lot more often if I ever want to break 100 for 18 holes again.
It was on to Italy, where Giancarlo Trenti as usual gave us hugely interesting fun gigs for fair though not great money, and monstrous great food and lodging, as our fave Italian driver Fabrizio hammered us up and down the roads of Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia and Croatia at 150-160 km/h without incident.
Italians must be vastly more skillful drivers than Americans, because their death-and-injury rate on the roads is much lower than ours here in the USA, and I assure you that Italians drink no less than Americans do, though probably not as much as Danes and Norwegians, who have the lowest death-and-injury rates per capita in all of Europe. One would have to conclude that alcohol was NOT the primary factor in the carnage on the roads, if one looked anywhere but the US! The Italians tailgate like crazy-- I'm scratching my head wondering why they don't all get hurt and killed more. I must conclude that they are more skillful at high speeds with little room for error.
All thanks to Hannes in Switzerland, Rac in Croatia, molti personni a Lanciano (I had serious guitar problems, and at least 7 techs and other consultants jumped in to help fix the guitar and make sure I had a replacement when the fix did not immediately take), and crowds everywhere from Trezzo sull'Adda, Maggia, Vrsar, Casalmaggiore and Lanciano for making this as fine a swing as a musician could ever hope for. Molto grazie a tutti, ragazze e ragazzi, per il tuo benvenuto del cuore! Great coffee as always, and a couple of outstanding bottles of wine. I had a Barolo 2006 that it took me three days to finish because it was so exquisite. However, it was not the MOST exquisite bottle I found, as I shall soon relate. Special musicianly appreciation from me and the whole group for our old friend Max Prandi and Marcos his harp player in Casalmaggiore, and to the Darko Jurkovic Trio, an absolutely outstanding jazz trio who opened for us in Vrsar. I felt a little guilty about being the headliner after masterful music like that.
After a day off in Rome, where Cliff, Ronnie and Stovall whizzed from the Vatican to the Coliseum in far too little time for me to have appreciated it (I don't take pictures, never have; I need at least a week sightseeing time for Rome before I will deign to be a tourist there), we were on to Cognac, France.
Now it is not a well-kept secret that I am a cognac aficionado. I once remained awake and functional, leading an antiwar-movement affinity group at the Moratorium March of 1971 and afterwards in The Great New Jersey Turnpike Stall, for almost 96 hours on one pint of cognac, an occasional toke, and a syringe of sheer adrenalin. I have drunk le liqueur le plus raffine du monde in a score of nations. Yeah, I love Kentucky Bourbon, Tennessee Sour Mash, Single Malt Scotch (and Irish), Italian Grappa, Danish and Norwegian Aquavit, and good ol' 'Mercan moonshine whiskey from whatever state, but cognac is the nonpareil.
We flew into Bordeaux airport from Rome, and the French tour guide, Pauline Ricard-- mille fois merci pour tout vos secours, ma chere!-- and chauffeur Samuel took us along to Cognac. It was our first time being transported by the French over any significant distance, and I am suitably impressed with French drivers, who DO maintain, in general, a safe interval between vehicles. Mille mercis encore a' Samuel, et tous les autres chauffeurs et chauffeures de voitures francais(es) qui nous ont conduits!
Before arriving at Cognac proper, we stopped for tobacco and water at a-- are you ready?-- freaking AMERICAN-OWNED CONVENIENCE STORE, an On The Run, within the grande champagne district of Cognac-- and there encountered stocks of some quite amazing French wines. I knew I couldn't carry a whole case back to the US, but I sure wanted to! I chose a Chateau Cheraux 2000, St. Emilion, and paid about 13� ($17) for it. An American oenologist (a wine expert) we met on the way from Amsterdam to Detroit confirmed what I suspected, that I had purchased an $80-100 bottle of wine for that ridiculous price at that convenience store! I have not opened it, and will do so over a gourmet meal with my friends Art and Carol Crivaro here in Clarksdale.
When we got to Cognac, I noted the name "Chateau Bagnolet" on the gate-building we entered. I asked the driver what the heck we were doing there, since he was supposed to be taking us to the hotel we were staying at while playing 4 days at the Cognac Festival Passions, annually one of the most prestigious in Europe. Well, it turned out that that WAS our lodging, and that, besides Jake Shimakoburo, maybe the world's greatest ukelele player, from Hawaii, we were the only guests staying at the chateau, which is the guest house for the Hennessy Company! I hoped aloud that I would die immediately, because everything else I ever did would have to be anticlimactic. I would note all the details of this dream lodging of four days duration, but it would just take too long, and I'm never short on words, perhaps you here and at the old Forum Home, sigh, have noticed, lol.
But suffice it to say that we absolutely tore the place up, in two band :band: appearances and two of my solo shows, and that I am now fast friends with Cyril, Jean-Marie and Marc, 3 out of 4 of the world ambassadors for Hennessy, and with Bernard Peillon, the president of the Company. I ate no less than 5 kinds of cheese at any of the high lunches we were served, drank Hennessy XO whenever I wanted a taste, even got to finally taste Paradis after 61 years, and found that there was a grade of Hennessy even above Paradis simply called "Richard", after the Irish founder of the company in 1765. I haven't tried that one yet (smack slurp drooooolll...)
The most amazing (etonnante) thing that happened is that, upon meeting M. Peillon, I was invited to talk to Hennessy about becoming an artist-in-residence at Chateau Bagnolet, and painting the grounds for them. The last artist who did so, over a century ago, was (sit down) CLAUDE MONET. I now hope to make that sojourn the centerpiece of my next year's adventures.
There was one moderate downer: Sometime before my second solo appearance, I either dropped my wallet, or conceivably was pickpocketed, and lost 13 or 1400 Euros-- 17-1800 dollars-- plus my driver's license and debit card :yow: . The French, with the help of my band members, succeeded in stopping the card within 3 hours of its loss, and the police there tell me that the thief will be unable to use that drivers' license to steal my identity across the pond. They hope to catch him, and the local newspaper even noted the loss, and even editorialized that the least thing that should happen is that the IDs should be returned, if not the money. But we sold 178 CDs after our triumphant final appearance-- 3rd most ever in a day-- and so I did not actually lose money on the tour, even made a modest profit.
It was 103 yesterday in Clarksdale, forecast is 101 for today. I'm back in the hot, steamy weather I love, and am off to cool Canada on Friday. British Columbia-- even cooler, maybe-- next weekend.
On other current events: well, it is great news that the cap on the Gulf well has held, and the process of stopping it for good seems to be proceeding it well. It is very bad that the three judges on the Federal Appeals Court who told Pres. Obama that he could not declare a moratorium on exploratory drilling in the Gulf are all significant owners of oil and oilfield-supply stocks. I would like to know if any of those stocks are Halliburton. If that isn't naked, brutal conflict of interest, for which all three judges should immediately have recused themselves, then there has never been any such thing in the jurisprudential history of the United States.
That story was around for about two days and then disappeared. I don't ever want to hear some mumbo-jumbo about tricameral checks and balances, when the capitalist private sector, the FOURTH and most important branch of GOVERNMENT, can force-- uh, induce-- the Judicial Branch to override an eminently reasonable decision by the Executive Branch, while the Legislative Branch stands by powerless to do anything more than play with its willie!
Watermelon Slim
Clarksdale, Mississippi :
Back To List
July 23, 2010
Hi there Slim!
I'm still amazed from your concert of the last night in Valle Maggia: thank you so much, you're a genius!!
Paolo
Back To List
July 2, 2010
Hey slim ... Im sitting here at your'e dining room table and i think im out of coffee ....Got any more for a guy that needs to wake up?........... Ahh just kidding ........Thanks for the Hospitality ...From me and all the Band ....Kilborn Alley Blues Band .....that is.....Give BD ...a pet for me .....Deak Harp
Back To List
June 28, 2010
Pete,
Here's a letter I wrote to the fellow that sent you this on Henry: Jon Silvermoon was a jammer-- a harp player, not a particularly good one, at the weekly blues jams at Taylor's Tavern, home of the blues-- ahem, Home Of The Blues-- in Eugene. He's good now, he's kept at it, good on him (ya get good enough, and everything else is just mystique generation, and he's definitely colorful), though I do not recognize the other fellas in the Vipers.
Whoooaahh,
How the curves suddenly get straight on the ol' mental roadmap-- how are you, Jon?? Good on you for taking on the biographical work on Henry.
Henry was very influential to me, and my association with Canned Heat started with my buying the Orange album as soon as it came out, in 1967. I was 18 and in the middle of obtaining my first real collection of irreplaceable records so that someone could steal them, lol. (I gave up after the third try, in 1987. Just before I left Eugene for Europe, somebody put legs on my packet of LPs out of Taylor's).
I watched Canned Heat from front seats-- touch the musicians if you-- no, /don't/ touch the musicians, not really-- at the Cafe Au Go Go, in New York, in 1968. It was the night of my high school class's graduation party. That drunken spree had left the original venue, and groups of us boys-now-men saying goodbye to each other had drifted various places. One of those places was the Cafe Au Go Go, because even in my drunken stupor I knew how to tell a cab driver where to go with three or four of us. Canned Heat, the classic lineup. Fito, the Bear, the Blind Owl, the Mole, and the Sunflower. Al Wilson was wearing a pilot's helmet! I'm not that much of a concert-goer myself, I MAKE concerts mostly, I don't go to 'em, ha ha-- but that was one of those times I can point to and say, "that ALL burned in"-- like moxabustion in connection with acupuncture, you gotta let the whole thing burn right up on your skin.
A few years later, 1974, I was working as a forklift operator for a masonry supply place in Watertown, Massachusetts-- don't try work like this for people like that-- and one of my semi-regular customers, whose one-ton flatbed I would load with sand, cement and other supplies, was Al Wilson's father, who was a mason in Belmont, as I remember. He was polite, but obviously still dealing with the loss, and I was just perceptive enough to realize that he wouldn't really want to talk about it, since everyone thought that it had been suicide. HENRY was still under the impression that it was suicide the last time I ever saw him, in March 1987. We have Terry Robb to thank for setting everybody straight, as I understand.
Henry was my roommate for about two months in an apartment I had
around the corner from campus and Taylor's. He would not leave his
bed until he had consumed the contents of a GIQ of Old English 800
or Mickey's or Colt 45 Malt Liquor. We would sometimes play poker
for very small stakes while killing time-- I was an A- student at U
of O, but I was as good at killing time as anybody, I reckon! He had
a good cardplaying line, when raising a bet: "price of poker's gone
up," he would say. From 1986 sometime through like March First,
1987, me, Ratso Reece on sax and Ricky Johnson on guitar, Mac
Singleton usually on drums, various bassplayers, Mike Miller was one
of 'em, Jerry Leff, as was Joey Pepper, and various guitar players--
James Bradshaw was one-- of which Henry Vestine was probably the
most frequent, played Sunday nights at Taylor's as Church of the
Blues. Occasionally, people like Curtis Salgado, or Robert Cray, or
members of their bands. would stop in and play. Henry was (as
officially as we got, lol) our official guitarist. It's only after
many years, and after finally having read the De La Parra CH bio,
that I understand the in-and-out, on-and-off relationship he had
with the various versions of Canned Heat.
Eventually, after being a Heat fan for 41 years, I got to play with
Canned Heat, back in May of 2008. We were excited because somehow my
band and Canned Heat had been booked as co-headliners for a
winery-run blues festival in Springfield (eastern) Nebraska.
Snakebit luck. We got there through torrential downpours, I think
they got 4 inches of rain that day, and what was left of the
festival moved indoors. Excellent wine and cheese, and I finally got
to meet Fito de la Parra, and tell him thanks so much, amigo, for
all the great times I had had with Canned Heat. And 43 years after
getting that first great album, I boogied with Canned Heat.
I know you and I hooked back up somewhere on my trail through this
century, I don't remember where. You might even have been at Good
Times in 1993, when I swooped through town in an 18-wheeler and
stopped for a jam. As personally as I live life, it still sometimes
feels like watching it through a windshield at 70 miles an hour.
Whoosh, get a glimpse, it's gone. Ah, dem was da days, at Taylor's.
Since people do occasionally ask me about my relationship with Henry
Vestine, this seems like a good time to put it in print. We'll see
you blues fans in Ritzville, Washington next,
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
June 28, 2010
Hi there blues fans,
Here I am, thank God, to tell you all about the most eventful tour
me or the Workers have ever been on. Stovall, a touring musician off
and on for 40 years, thought he had seen it all-- /I/ thought
Stovall had seen it all-- but even he wasn't prepared for what
happened when we got to British Customs at the Birmingham airport. I
will just let Cliff describe the situation as it was unfolding:
"Well Shit happens,
Today when we were at immigrations at the Birmingham Airport,We told
them we were here to play the Linton festival.They needed some kind
of sponsorship or work visa and we had none. All I had were
schedules and Martin (the promoter)'s number.So they detained us,
took us in a room, kept our passports, fingerprinted us, and took
our pictures. 4 hours later they granted us tempoary admission to
the Kings Head Hotel in Herefordshire, gave us back our passports
and told us not to perform anywhere.We should be able to get on the
plane tomorrow at 10:30 am 4:30 your time tomorrow.
Martin did come by and pay us. He is so upset and has been in
contact with immigrations. He didn't have a clue that this would happen.
I don't know what the fallout will be, but it scared the crap out of
all of us."
None of this team had anything to do with this foulup. In a way ,
it's too bad it wasn't a SOLO tour. I'd have definitely been on the
phone to the embassy. But as Cliff has said, they really did mean
business, and it was only by our insistence that if they really
wanted us to leave, without playing, and without missing our plane
the next day and incurring major extra expense to rebook, they had
to let us have our passports-- a very simple concept, it seemed to
me, and well within their discretion-- that we were able to get on
the plane without further incident.
We had to go with the flow to a certain extent. There was only real
confrontation with one of the officers, one who reacted quite
strongly when I suggested that it was time for me to call the US
Embassy about our passports.
Cliff did a magnificent job in all respects. It's funny, Mike
Newberry and I had the roles of bad cop, good cop. Next to Newberry,
I was the voice of reason, lol. It usually worked.
But Cliff does a much better job of not being blunt, of negotiating.
And besides, he was familiar with our own documentation, such as we
had. I'm a blunt fellow, and my pressure, my cutting to the
chase, was certainly also required. But the highest accolades for
Cliff for his leading the negotiations which resulted, when we got
to Bristol more than an hour ahead of our scheduled appointment, in
a call being made and the matter resolved there and then.
Our morning driver, a grizzled fellow named David, at first arrived
with a vehicle too small to include all our gear. But he went back
and got a minibus, and had us there on a ride we had allowed 2 1/2
hours for-- we thought we had a Border Guards appointment at 8:30,
and heavy traffic was possible-- in little more than an hour,
watching the English countryside at sometimes 85 MPH. I called him
Stirling Moss, boy, he was hammer down! Knew the roads, he did, and
traffic was negligible almost all the way but the last 10-15
miles. He was a pro driver, as good as John Adams, who was trained
in Escape and Evasion, swift and sure. And he had another job at 8,
so he had an incentive to pour it on.
The morning started with a good omen, though: in the western sky was
an intense rainbow, that was at least strongly double where we could
see it. The rainbow was one of the longest I have ever seen; a part
persisted half the way to Bristol.
I will be getting an update on my condition sometime this week.
Including extra overland transportation and medical expenses, I
spent over a grand (though no hospital stay and missed gigs-- music
in every gig, even when I was sickest, was outstanding). But I seem
to be recovering properly with the Norwegian antibiotic.
Oh, yeah, the music. To the people of Stavanger, Sandnes,
Lillestrom-- what lovely clean small cities these are-- and Oslo-- a
lovely big city, as well as Copenhagen, one more on the short list
of the most beautiful capitals I have visited, with Ottawa-- We're
so blessed to have been able to see you all once, or once more. And
we met so many Norwegians and Danes who were solid fans going back
for years! We're glad we were hitting on all musical cylinders, in
"The Zone" all the time, despite my ailment.
And to our special people: Joren, Jurgen (whom I barely saw, because
of my medical problem), Flemming, who highballed me from the
Copenhagen train station to the Danish gig personally, after I had
been on a 10-hour, 3-train trip to make the gig, Nalle (who I missed
completely ;-(), and of course, our indispensable, superpro tour
person, Birgit, who drove me all the way to Hamburg, Germany in the
wee hours to catch the next train, AND THEN came all the way back to
get The Workers to the airport-- we know who our friends are, and
where, by golly! Bless you all.
I must add Germany to the small list of countries I DON'T want to
revisit. The supposed first class train ride from Hanburg to Munich,
the first leg of a van plus 3-train, 17 1/2-hour trek from
Copenhagen to Mestre Italy, and THEN an hour and a half to Fossalta
for the first Italian gig, the Red Moon Festival in Fossalta, was
the worst train ride I ever took.
These Germans don't so much as serve a supposed first-class customer
a complimentary glass of water! When I told the dining car lady I
needed a bottle of water, due to my medical condition, she brought
me an ounce or two of bubbly water in the bottom of a cup,
grudgingly, so that I could take my antibiotic. No thought
whatsoever about my well being. Of my lack of Euros at the time of
my entrance ( I got on the train at 4:57 AM, no Cambios open then,
all I had were kroner and dollars), she said, "This is Europe! You
must have Euros. Now go." Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is rude
with a capital R. The next train, from Munich to Verona, Italy, was
much nicer, with good food I was allowed to buy with Euros I
eventually got a chance to buy in Munich, and friendly staff, both
kitchen and trainpersons.
And the third, strictly internal Italian, train, to Mestre, near
Venice, was most interesting because it was actually a big diesel
truck on rails. It was a diesel considerably smaller than a
locomotive-- perhaps no larger that a big Cat-- and the engineer
actually shifted gears to bring it up to cruising speed, and slow
down where necessary. The train had a six-speed manual transmission!
All these trains were fast, when the road was open for them, and the
entire 15-hour train trip landed me at my final destination exactly
a minute and a half behind schedule. That's some precision.
Fossalta, Treviglio, Gattinara, San Benedetto. Paolo and Giosue, the
Red Moon Festival promoters, Beppe, our tour guide, GianLuca, our
gracious host in San Benedetto, and especially GianCarlo Trenti:
/Non posso dire piu megliore che-- magnifico! Spiacente per il mio
Italiano povero, ma tutti raggierungamenti sono fatto a dare quattro
musicisti la loro opportunita introduire la nostra musica a tutti
voi! Mille grazie, ancora, per la tua ospitalita, e qual'che ha
stato montrata per tutti uomi e femmini, ragazzi e ragazze, ancora
bambini e cani, in la vostra paese, La Italia! Salute!/
My Italian is definitely getting better. And golly gee, how the
Italians can serve some coffee!
The doc in Norway prohibited me strictly from flying
Advice to any musicians considering touring dates in England: do all
the paperwork yourselves, even if that creates an additional expense
of money and time. Hire a professional, if you're not good with
exchange of information internationally, to do this specialized
task. Same for Canada.
By the way, the shows went great, and it's a wonder, because I had
traveled to Europe with a serious medical condition, possibly
beginning with a spider bite, thinking that it was under control
through the antibiotics I was prescribed two days before I had to
get on the plane in Memphis and head east.
It wasn't, it overwhelmed the amoxycillin, and I was diagnosed in
Norway with eripsylas, a particularly nasty cellulitic infection.
I was told, when I went to the doctor in Lillestrom, Norway on the
10th, that she had saved my life. If I'd gone without care for
another day or two I would have been dead.
Luckily, I didn't have to go to the hospital, the penicillin and
blood-thinner therapy has almost completed itself. I told 'em I just
didn't have the money, and I couldn't leave Europe owing thosands of
dollars, maybe 10s of 1000s, in hospital expenses. I finished the
tour, and I am recovering, but now have a permanently increased risk
of blood clots and stroke in this leg.
Of course, I don't yet know what the doctors are going to say here,
whether or how much I can fly or tour. I'm damaged, and a situation
like in England may never arise again. I'm sitting here past 2:30,
looking forward to seeing my garden's progress in the morning light.
The melon hills look like they're doing pretty well in the half moon.
I've been home since about 10:30 last night. Charlie Burch picked me
up at the airport in a Corvette, nice cab, lol. The melons (Black
Diamond, Georgia Rattlesnake, honeydew and canteloupe) are mostly
looking fine, ditto the tomatoes (hoops arriving tomorrow) and
jalapenos. The beans are good, the corn is going to make, and my 8
okra plants are going to get along no matter what anything else in
the garden does. Okra always thrives! Onions and garlic, pole beans,
notso hotso. I'll be working on the tilth-- the fluffinesss-- of the
soil here over the next winter, breaking the rich black clayey soil
down to 18 inches and tilling in loads of sand, green manures, and
horse shit.
The dog, BD, is as much of a lovable pain in the ass as ever. The
back gate is almost completed, and then BD will be unable to go out
and roll around in rancid, nasty stuff any more, or break any more
window screens escaping from the house-- he'll have a dog door to go
out IN HIS YARD.
That's it for now. Thank you to everyone who has made this a purty
damn good six-year run, says this battered, dog-eared former
truckdriver! God Bless, from Ronnie, Stovall, Cliff and me, a
belated Happy Fathers' Day to all fathers, and so,
Kirk Out
Back To List
June 19, 2010
Dear Southern Records Staff and Slim,
Well, as a total bues freak for the last 60 yrs., I am still constantly exited to learn about artists that I had not heard yet, old and new. Just heard Watermelon Slim today on our blues/jazz station here in el aye, KJAZZ and was very impressed, so checked out site/blog, etc. Like reading about his life experiences and views also, which resonantes with me. I hope to catch the band if and when they come out this way. Thanks Slim and band for your fine music.
Sara Ross
Back To List
June 17, 2010
Hi my friend. I had the pleasure to introduce you at the Nordals Festival Saturday June 12. - Boy how that boy can play - it was a pleasure. I gave the oyster shell to the guitarist at the Oyster Band. He was very happy and asked the question that everybody has asked - What the heck - why did Watermelon Slim have a oyster shell in his flight case ? How did he know month or years ago walking at the Louisiana shore that he would play at the same festival as the Oyster Band - How did you ? :) or is the some Voodoo hokus pokus involved :) I'll be in the Oklahoma area within the next coming weeks - if the road and the car is in the mood - we might drop by for a jam or 2.
Ib
Best regards | Mit freundlichen Gr�ssen
Med venlig hilsen | ????* *
***_Ib Franke_***
Back To List
June 14, 2010
Hi Slim,
yes we were the couple from Ft.Smith by way of Sallisaw, Oklahoma. We met you first at R. Landry's and then at Rentiesville, you drank all my beer there.? Anyway I really have the blues this year because I haven't been able to catch a single show of yours. I am very disappointed, and because of that, every show I have been to see, I ask the performer about you, most say they are your friends, I feel like a heel talking to them about you, but I just can't help myself. RJ Mischo and Bob Margolin to name a few. I am very much looking forward to the Rentiesville Festival but disappointed that you won't be there, you are going to have start letting me know when you will drop by there, so I can come! I wanted to catch the show at the Flytrap but just couldn't make it. I have your new album, wow, different, not necessarily what I expected but you could sing anything and I will love. Can't wait to see you again, have a safe tour!
Nena Garrett
Back To List
June 14, 2010
Hi Slim and Workers
How frigthfully good to see you all again yesterday - this time at Nord-Als Musikfestival 2010 !
Another exellent performance of live blues for live people. Even though winds and weather were not at its best for outddor concerts you made a lot of people feel really good.
However - due to the limited time as you explained - we missed your good stories and storytelling from a life less ordinary- but don't worry we take a reincheck on that next time possible :-)
So we are already looking forward to your next gig in Denmark (or around).
Best regards
Susanne og Jens Strandgaard
p.s.: Couldn't help noticing your T-shirt "IRAQ is arabic for VIETNAM"
- food for thougth !
Back To List
June 10, 2010
Hallo Slim!
Thank you so much for the great concert i Stavanger, it is the best concert i have ever been to. I also liked talking to you and the band Slim, and you were very friendly every one of you. Good luck with the rest of the tour, and i hope you come to Stavanger again!!!
Best regards
Olav!
Back To List
June 10, 2010
I have seen Watermelon Slim 3 times in Omaha and once at Memphis in May and love his engaging shows. I had great time talking to him on his breaks and listening to the great stories. I read a article about John Steinbeck and one of his favorite quotes and thought it would be a great addition to the front of the band's van.
"As astra per alia porci" or "to the stars on the wings of a pig."
a great fan,
Ron Willeman
Back To List
May 20, 2010
I can't begin to express the feeling I get when I see Watermelon Slim and his band. He is extraordinary.
I love the fact that he never fails to express his views on the state of our universe both past and present as part of his performance. We were lucky enough to see him twice within a couple weeks (Pgh, PA & Easton, MD).
His CDs are unbelievably just like the live performances, even though the same artists may not be playing. He asked me to email the attached picture of Slim, Jonnye (Pres. of the Western Pa. Blues Society) and me to you so you could add it to website. I added another picture Scott took of Slim (one of the many).
Looking forward to the next time I get to have so much fun.
Francine McCullion
Back To List
May 16, 2010
Hey Blues fans,
It's been a long tour, but because me and the Workers have decided to take more time getting from all our Point As to Point Bs, the tour has not been physically debilitating for me as many tours have been in the past. Cliff and Ronnie Mac and Stovall have played outstanding, and our shows have been universally encore or double-encore performances. Y'all just won't let us off the stage sometimes! Thank you so much for the warmth you have shared with us all the way from Florida through Ohio, Pennsylvania through New York. We haven't yet made Maryland, but we've gotten as far as Philly, where we will hold forth tonight and tomorrow at Warmdaddy's, hopefully for a whole bunch of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Ordinarily I spend a lot of these blog entries describing where we've been, and who we've seen and played for, around the country and around the world. Sometimes, though, I use the blog as a place to tell you what I think-- I am, for better or worse, a political analyst-- about various subjects and issues. I want to talk a little about the tributes I have paid to our fallen troops, my (and your!) brothers and sisters. Yes, sisters, because more women have died in combat in these wars than any other wars the US has ever fought. I have been playing "Taps" for years-- so many years, it seems-- not only for OUR dead, but for those of several other countries the Workers have visited.
I began the practice, in fact, on the occasion of the first KIA Canada had suffered since the Korean War. Now, Canada, being a dutiful NATO member, has borne the brunt of the action in Afghanistan. Last I looked, Canada had lost over 140 killed and thousands-- at least a couple of thousand-- wounded, in their support of the US military adventure there. I mentioned NATO, but everyone in the world knows, after 9 years, that this is a United States war. Thus, Canada-- and even more reluctantly, but just as dutifully, Denmark, a place me and the Workers sheerly LOVE to play and visit-- have given their best to support us.
Sorry, but this being a blog, I can say anything I want. The disastrous, discretionary quagmires of wars the Bush Administration blundered into, or cynically provoked-- I leave it to the reader to decide which explanation is more compelling-- continue to sadden, and anger, me. Unfortunately, and I know I am not the first to say so, Americans have not borne the weight and responsibility for these wars universally and evenly. It's not all the fault of We The People. The Bush Administration would not allow Americans to watch the flag-draped coffins return from the Middle East. The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was caught rubber-stamping the death certificates of our fallen friends, lovers and relatives, rather than actually and physically signing them, as mandated by military tradition, if not by the law (he's never been prosecuted for this callousness)!
So I will continue to play "Taps" at my gigs. I have enough wind to play the tune for many years (sometimes I do it with the harp, sometimes with guitar), but I hope you will pray with me that Barack Obama, whom I continue to believe in the good intentions of, will see reason, understand the law of diminishing returns with respect to whatever aims might somehow, sometime have been valid, and bring our children, our brothers and sisters, fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts-- lovers and friends, related and unrelated-- home from these wars that have driven our desperate flailing for more and more oil-- and the proof of the desperation of that last is a gusher 5,000 feet below the surface of the enclosed bathtub we call the Gulf of Mexico pouring out hundreds of thousands of gallons a day of crude. While I'm at it, I guess I'll have to start playing Taps for the marshes and estuaries of the states, and other nations, surrounding that body of water, and the wildlife that lives there.
I'm writing this blog entry while sitting in The Honeywagon, before the guys are up. They hate it-- everyone hates it-- when I have to sleep in the van. I don't hate it, though. As a trucker, I slept plenty in my vehicle. The guys need space and time to themselves, and Ronnie Mac is having a touch of stomach upset, and dern sure needs a john close by at the moment. But I want everyone to know I'm feeling very chipper, right now, though since I must continue to work, and, at least a bit, to dance at work, a slight ankle sprain continues to not be completely cleared up.
I have a new chiropractor, Patricia Johnson of Clarksdale, and she has significantly improved my physical state. I want to use this moment to thank all my chiropractors over the last several years of touring-- Dr. Somerville and Dr. Bugg in Oklahoma City, Dr. Barrett and her clinic team in Nashville, Dr. Wagner, whose main gig now is one of the Workers' favorite clubs to play, Blues On Grand in Des Moines, plus numbers of men and women in the US and Canada and New Zealand and Australia and Italy who have "cracked" and straightened me where and when I needed it most. Thank you all so much, and God bless you all for your service,
Slim
Back To List
May 16, 2010
I just saw one of the best blues performances in a small venue in Easton, Maryland.
Slim tore up the vocals, steamed a variety of harmonicas and made the slide guitar sing! Absolutely awesome and it helped raise money for Tom Cat Solutions and cats in Talbot country Maryland too !
Got a chance to talk to the band after the show...real people, great fun and if you are in the New York area, they are playing there next. I'd suggest you drive, fly or walk to see one of the best shows you'll see! Worth every moment.
Thanks to slim and the band for making Easton a little better place!
All the best and safe travels,
Jim Rybacki
Easton, Maryland
Back To List
May 16, 2010
*My Dad and Mom came to see you in Philly for their anniversary last night, and came home very happy. I just wanted to say "thank you" for going out of your way to make it a special evening for them. *
*My father is a big fan. He and my Mom attended the show at WarmDaddys in Philly on Friday night, and Watermelon Slim treated them very kindly. I would like to extend a very warm "thank you" for that. It really made their anniversary special. You hear about artists who are jerks, or are aloof, but he was a genuinely super person. I will support him, and will definitely attend any upcoming shows in the area. *
* *
*Thank you again, *
*Patrick Capossere*
Back To List
May 3, 2010
Had a great time at Mojo Kitchen in Jax beach Slim.
You sounded great.Took a while but I was happy to finally get to hear you and the Workers.What a great band.
Cliff and Ron were on.Don't know the drummer but he was great too.How about a tune from a short feature film I scored?
Keep it between the ditches wheel man.
Gordo
florida
Back To List
April 19, 2010
Blog Entry April 19
*--BULLETIN--*
/A Ryder Rentals panel truck exploded this morning in front of the Murrah Federal Building / /in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. / /The bomb, estimated to have contained 4800 pounds of ammonium nitrate, left the 10 story / /office building a devastated ruin. Casualties are mounting, and hospitals as far away as / /Tulsa are mobilizing to treat hundreds of wounded. At least two children at a daycare / /center in the building were killed by the blast./ /No suspects have been identified by authorities, but an FBI spokesman said on condition / /of anonymity, "this has the fingerprints of a Middle Eastern operation." Search and / /rescue operations are continuing./
****************************
Even in 1995 the red-herring mid-eastern-terrorist diversion was in use.
Now we know
middle-easterners had nothing to do with it, and that neoNazis who are part of a continuum that stretches back through the Aryan Republican Army, the Silent Brotherhood (of David Mathews), the American Nazi Party, and the original Nazis of Germany, aided and advised McVeigh. It's why I've said to any number of you blues fans that if I somehow attained enough money to be sure I could pay everybody, I would set aside this blues career y'all have blessed me with, and finish my own independent investigation in the case of the Murrah Bombing.
****************************
Right now, though, I have to tell y'all about the *Juke Joint Festival* in Clarksdale, Mississippi this past weekend. What a magnificent, historical, fun time! You blues fans from all over the US-- I met people from California, West Virginia (a member of my political discussion board, and her husband came all the way down here to hear *Super Chikan* and myself, thanks, Sue!), Minnesota, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Texas, St. Louis and KC Missouri, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and other far away places, including England and the Netherlands. My own little itineray around the festival, which comprised eight stages and more than a dozen more indoor venues at night (or in the case of rain, of which there was absolutely none. The weather was spectacularly good for festival-going!) is to follow, but I want to say a little bit about what makes this festival special.
First of all, no musical event I know (except maybe the other Clarksdale festival, the Sunflower Festival, in August) quite as completely spreads the local culture of the blues out for all to enjoy as this one. You're not real likely to hear bluesmen like *Josh * *"Razorblade" Stewart, Terry "Harmonica" Bean, "Big A" AND "Big T", Big Jack Johnson, Bill **Abel, Louis "Gearshifter" Youngblood, Robert "Bilbo" Walker, and Mr. Tater (Foster Wiley*) outside Mississippi, though they all get out from time to time. But the fact that they're here, living here, is why I have said to anyone who will listen that the blues is never going to turn into a museum exhibit. Museums are cool and historical, of course, but the music itself can-- must-- never get behind glass cases.Not on my watch it won't!
Besides that, this is a serious lineup with headliners as illustrious as any place I can
name-- *Honey Boy Edwards, Johnny Rawls,* Super Chikan*, Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band, Cedric Burnside and Lightning Malcolm, Jimbo Mathus, Adam Gussow (of Satan and Adam), Big George Brock with Charine
Wagner,* *T-Model Ford,* and *Cedell Davis*, to name some of my musical friends who appeared. Living here as I do now, I hope to be helping host all y'all for years!
Roger Stolle, owner of Cat's Head, one of the leading distributors of blues-related art, is the impresario (he's gotta be, he paid me, lol) of this festival, and he just said "play this one gig (at noon on Saturday), and then just go around and sit in with whoever you want to." I knew he meant play with AS MANY of these folks as possible! So I got started early on that.
The festival has events going on from the 15th through the 18th, Thursday though Sunday, and I started my own weekend at The Blueberry Cafe, owned by Art and Carol Crivaro.I know I've mentioned them before, not just because Carol makes the best eggplant parmigiana on the planet. This was the biggest crowd I have ever played at the Blueberry, and they were there for hours, because *Robin Rogers* and her band followed me-- the place didn't get empty till WAY past bedtime! What's maybe the most gratifying thing is that the local Clarksdalians (I think that's the word) are all into the culture, and they follow you around from venue to venue. Well, y'all were practically sitting on each other's laps Friday night.
The weather was warming right up, and I'm happy to say I sweated more at this gig than any other yet this year! I was also fortunate to find my buddies *Deak Harp* and The *Forkman *had rolled into town, and I got Deak to come up and give me a hand with some *Muddy* and *Slim Harpo*.
I'm about to go out and wake them up, in Deak's little Winnebago in my driveway.
****
Coffee and a smoke is now being had, not much blog is being written....
****
Well, now everybody's coffeed and smoked, so I can begin again, and mention that among others who came to this Blueberry Cafe kickoff were Tony and Janis Negri from Memphis, with their daughter, now Mrs. Joe Whitmer of the *Blues Foundation*; Mac Crank (now Clarksdale cultural director, doing a great job) and Shelly Ricker, from Stillwater, Oklahoma; Clarksdale realtor and my fishing buddy Joe Middleton. I'm sitting here forgetting a couple of other long-time friends and I'm damned if I can bring 'em up on the mental harddrive.
I will tell you (if you didn't notice) that I was playing this gig in quite intense pain in both feet, that's why I had to remove my shoes, literally starting the removal as I was playing a song. My left foot was cramping. At the end of the weekend, on Sunday, when I had come down to Red's and played with a phenomenal seven-year-old named *Roman* from New Mexico, who enchanted an eventually jam-packed (did you get that pun?) crowd at the mac-daddy juke joint in town, my feet hurt so bad that I had to go home and put 'em up, instead of playing with Big A and Bilbo Walker and *Duck Holmes* and everyone else that eventually gravitated there.
Back to Saturday. After tearing up the Cat's Head high-noon crowd (though it was actually much closer to one o'clock when I started), I took a bit of time to wander around and see what I would get into next.
On the street outside Club Vegas, across from Ground Zero, a very young
man-- no, a boy-- was playing a guitar through a small amp. He caught my ear. This is where I would start, I figured. The lad's name was *Omar Gordon*, and he had talent enough so that we drew a good little crowd right there on the street for half an hour or more. The kid turned out to be 18, though he looked several years younger. He was one of three kids that give me confidence to say that the blues is a green and living thing. The other was a 15-year-old I'll tell you about in a minute.
I gave him a copy of /Watermelon Slim and the Workers/, and moseyed back over to Delta Amusements, next to Club Vegas, where *Blue Mother Tupelo* was setting up. I used to be in touch with this Tennessee trio 7-8 years ago. They are highly distinctive, and I think I like their ultra-no-frills drummer best of all! They did all original music, rare today. Blues meets 1990s jam band, with the energy of *Moreland and Arbuckle*.
I was feeling like playing again, though, and so I wandered over to the Club 2000, Tater's club on Issaquena, where a threepiece named *Old Grey
Mule* was hammering down, and tore up THEIR best crowd in forever with the Mule (as opposed to local harp player mike *"Mule Man" Massey*, who I did not get to play with this weekend). I missed playing with a lot of folks, including* Super Chikan*, who I had promised myself to sit in with. Sigh. Then I sat there for another hour and a half, after finding out that Brandon Santini and his band (*Wainwright, Santini and Roberts*), who were backing *Jay Gaunt*, the 15-year-old protege of Santini and the mighty *Jason Ricci*, were delayed, and watched T-Model Ford in his "zone". I was going to play with T-Model, but one thing about "T" is that when he's in that sweet spot, the best thing is to stand aside and let him and his 11-year-old grandson, on drums, do the work.
Just so many places to go, and me not walking real well. But it's only 2 blocks or so from 5th and Issaquena to the Blueberry on Delta, and when I got there, they were still setting up, and I got to sit and chat with an absolute phenom of a harp player, a nerdy little guy named Jay Gaunt, there with his mother as well as with dear friends and supporters Betsie Brown and Charley Burch down from Memphis. I sang a couple of numbers with Jay and the Santini outfit, and just stood aside when this young fellow who has already been playing professionally for three years showed why he will be the next great harp player of the 21st century (after Jason Ricci, that is!). Like the 7-year-old Roman (who really has an unlimited future as a showman-- totally relaxed before a crowd), Jay has no sense of superiority or stage ego, even if he is the best teenage harp player I ever heard. But he is a virtuoso, and I do not use that term lightly.
I finally ran into my accountant Rex Hodges from Oklahoma City, who was on his way to see his daughter over near Knoxville. I tried to keep him in sight but he was just having too much fun.
The night was well fallen, and I knew I had a place or two more that I would have to make before calling this evening quits. And by 11 PM it wasn't hard to decide where to go next-- Hicks BarBq and Tamales, over on State Street (it was time to move the Honeywagon from its excellent spot outside Ground Zero).
Johnny Rawls and I have known each other for 7-8 years, since I first met him at Rentiesville. He goes back decades with the Minners, and is a perennial favorite at that Oklahoma festival. We've played together only
2-3 times, but his band is so good (and although Johnny often has horns, this was a bare-bones three-piece gig, so less musicians to confuse,
lol) that I knew we would tear up anything we tried. We funkified "Call My Job", by *Detroit Junior*, as well as I've ever been able to funkify it with anyone over 20-plus years of playing the tune, and that turned out to be the last, and the fitting best, of the music that I would play all night. /*Johnny Rawls*/, y'all, I'm gone down the road to the Hopson Plantation (on US 49, where the Shack-Up Inn is), where I did not get to play with *Big George Brock*, but at least was able to have an emotional reunion with him at the Commissary.
After checking back by Red's, and Big Jack, after 1:30, I headed for the house. Yesterday my heels hurt so bad that I didn't know whether I could make it out at all the next day (Sunday), but then finally got out of the house and down to Red's where I played with the 7-year-old I have mentioned, and Big A, along with amateur musicians from Clarksdale-- it was, as I said, a jam-packed jam! I've got my chiro at three, I'm working on these orthopedic issues, y'all.
I am told that this was the best Juke Joint Festival from an overall (including growth and financial) standpoint they've ever had here. I don't know how many thousands of you blues fans were here, but as I have been saying ever since I got in this profession, "if it weren't for you, wouldn't be no us."
We've got some more gigs on the schedule, y'all keep in touch now, hear?
God Bless Everybody,
Watermelon Slim
*********** Addendum ***************
As usual, I can't even remember his name after having the pleasure to meet him again, this weekend at the Juke Joint Festival, but to the gentleman who gave me the two harps at The Pearl, over in Dallas-- thank you again so very much!
See, when we loaded in at the club I realized that I had left my harps in Rentiesville, and I had a show to play, Texas Ray was there, we were hot to trot, and these two BLUES FANS came to the rescue by lending me (as I thought) 5 harmonicas, all Lee Oskars. I'm coming out of a festival office on Delta when this fellow is walking toward me with a teeshirt on that says, "I Play Little Walter's Mistakes." Bingo. Well, pard, if you know the other fellow, take my love and fellowship I give you to him too, and hopefully we'll see you at the Pearl much later this year.
This little story illustrates two things: that traveling bands, even with an elaborate system of Idiot Check always consciously afoot during loadin and loadout, still make mistakes. I leave a thing or two on almost every tour. They've got my walking cane at Legends in Chicago from this last one. I need it, too!
And the second thing, apropos to this supplemental blog entry, is what countless of you have heard me repeat around the world: if it weren't for you-- the enthusiasts, the aficionados, the beginners, the traditionalists, the envelope-pushers, the countryChicagorockinNawlinsbackbeat-happyMemphis-boundCrossroads-standing
BLUES FANS-- there wouldn't be no us.
Let's see, who's been writing? Well, the Dohms, of course. Ed and Patti and Tracey made it to two gigs on the last tour. And the Shananaquets, who showed up in force, bringing medicine objects (I still have the roccasin, BTW), in Michigan. Your families are part of me.
Alan and Ivan from Fredericton-- glad to be of help, eh?
Sue-- Your story cracked me up, but I can totally grok it, because Shakespeare once wrote a line somewhere that goes, "Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast." Give your doggies an extra treat just for me!
Washtub-- always in touch, compad. See you down at Chan's?
Larry-- thank you; I don't know if or when "Ripe for the Picking" will be reissued. I have 4 copies myself, I want to keep two for historical reasons. If you sent an address, it would be $25 American plus shipping.
Torbjorn-- like almost all Danish and Norwegian 16-year-olds-- I guess you're 17 now-- your English is as good as the average American or Brit's. You are reaping the benefits of a top-rate educational system.
Don't you dare give up on your guitar! Get down to the Kulturpubb at Lillestrom on the 10th of June-- or see if one of the other three gigs works better for you! See you there, come introduce yourself.
Nena Garrett-- damn, I should remember you! Say, you two weren't the folks I met this weekend who said they met me in Fort Smith, were you?
Glad to be remembered up that way.
Darcy Hicks (and Nena)-- I won't be at Rentiesville this year-- I'll be in Ireland (Darcy, good Irish name, that)--- but I'll be thinking about y'all that weekend, and just like a bad penny, I'll keep on turning up at Rentiesville over the years.
Van the Coffee Man! Keep that caffeinated enthusiasm coming! Thanks for the jolt over the years, from the band (except for teadrinker Stovall).
Jenipher Sutherland-- Now, I wonder where you heard those rumblings way back as early as you did, since they turned out to be true! Hope you enjoyed the Cruise with me! LOL.
Michael-Jane-- 10-4, driver, great to see you there at the beginning of the tour, and also out there on NE 15th at that juke joint with Pat and Domenica! Like I said, I'll be back at Rentiesville soon as I can. Come Awwwnn...
Sonny-- wasn't that a great show? I hope Mr. Gipp understands now, lol.
We had a couple from the Gipp's gig at our Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale this weekend.
Thanks so much to you all for making my life too much fun to slow down any further for the time being. I warn you, I will not play in a wheel chair. I may get where I can't dance even a little any more, but if I actually have to grow wheels, that's it. No mobility carts for Slim.
The word of the day is thank you. Merci. Gracias. Grazie. Takk. Denk je.
Danke. Spassibo. (I can't write it in Turkish, I can barely say it, lol). You blues fans make my life worthwhile. See you on the trail,
Slim
Back To List
April 18, 2010
Looking forward to seeing you at our UK "local pub" gig - Linton Festival on June 20th. Sun ( with luck ), straw bales , plenty of real ales and you, perfect.
Sent from Keith's iPod
With best regards
Back To List
April 6, 2010
Oh, there you are, blues fans,
Well, the touring year has started with a bang and a swoop of 3700 miles or so throughout the midwest, from Ohlahoma and Arkansas up through Missouri and Kentucky, all the way up to Michigan, working the "old"
Buddy Guys Legends club for the last time, working back down through Nebraska and Missouri, finally terminating in a fitting-high point party at Knuckleheads in Kansas City. This time last night I was playing a couple of tunes down at Red's, having just driven the 580 miles, give or take a few, back to Clarksdale, where I intend to lay PRETTY low for April and gather my strength for the next tour.
That's me, totally up to date. Now let's see, what have I been doing?
Well, my musical swing actually started back in February. Afyer a winter of doing not much but staying indoors and occasional trips out to play at Red's, I came up to Oklahoma City and took part in three performances of a traditional musical presentation of political satire called the Gridiron Roast. Memorizing other people's lines is not as easy as all that, y'all. But after "freezing" on my big part at the dress rehearsal, I drew back within myself and did my silly but significant part the way a professional should.
On the way back to Mississippi from OKC I stopped by Rentiesville and did a little recording with Selby Minner and all the guys and gals down at the Down Home Blues Club, the home of the late Oklahoma bluesman D.C.
Minner. Dusk to Dawn is alive and well, and Selby is practicing a new group for the road.
I got a week off then and started my solo week in Alabama and Nashville.
Thursday I was eating oysters in Mongomery with Lewis at the Oyster Bar.
It might be the last time they will have music there for awhile, Lewis is hauling cars to make the restaurant go, and they're cutting back to just the fine food they're known for in Montgomery. And the oysters.
Yuummm. I made 'em promise that if they should consider having a special night or two of music there, they'll bring me in.
Played two gigs in Tuscaloosa the next day. The first was a special lunch-hour appearance for the senior editors of Overdrive Magazine and Truckers' News, two industry publications based there. For almost the first time I was able to dig deeply into the music of Escape From The Chicken Coop with a sympathetic crowd of knowledgable people. You can go to www.overdriveonline.com/overdrive-extra
to see how we're making progress getting this music in the hands of you truckers, to whom this record is dedicated. Kudos to my publicist Michael McClune for arranging this important l'il gig. More like it please! Then at night, I had a two-encore night with a fair crowd at Little Willies, in the downtown entertainment strip. We'll be back in Tuscaloosa.
From there, I visited a Legendary juke joint, owned and operated (and he is hands-on) by a venerable gentleman named Mr. Gipp. He is 87, and has the eye-- and the grip-- of a much younger man. It was a full house, and inspired me to dig deep into the blues. I played an extra set, as part of a jam with amateurs including Mr. Gipp himself on the guitar.
Thanks and a hat tip especially to the brother who led me way up the hill to this place, and then back to my motel.
Thence to Nashville, where before playing at a place called Carol Ann's, me and John Justice (of Louisville, a great musical buddy of mine, if Ihave never mentioned him) went to a local studio where Jon is putting together a collection of songs by the late Sean Costello recorded by various artists, and I laid down the lead vocal track on one titled "Who's Cheating Who?" There was no promotion and hence no crowd at the club, on a Sunday in Nashville, which I am told is the kiss of death for a gig anyway. So the Jon Justice Band, and me solo, played to an empty house, though Miles Wilkinson and his other half Cindy were there, and my friend Bert Polchese who was driving all the way from Maine to California and had by that time hit Interstate 40 and was heading west.
From there, we kicked off the next touring season with a very successful gig at Oklahoma City Limits, especially since that is Saint Paddy's Day, and my favorite OKC family the Lavictoires are most of 'em working at McNelly's, an Irish Pub (Susan Lavictoire, the mother of the clan, is the producer of the Gridiron Roast). Thanks, Jim, and thank you to the Oklahoma Blues Society for turning out!
Dito to the Tulsa Blues Society at the Flytrap Arena. Nobody seems to know, not the manager, no one, why this particular place is called the Flytrap Arena. But it's a fun place to play, and the half crowd or so that were there had a ball. Excellent slide guitarist led the opening act (I'm supposed to remember these names, but I just can't bring it up.
Y'all trace it back through the club's website...)
At Nathan P. Murphy's, in Springfield MO, we rekindled some old acquaintances and had a pretty nice crowd. Had Booker's there, for the only time on the trip! Then we went down to Chelsea's, mountainous Eureka Springs, Arkansas (yes, the Ozarks and Ouachitas are mountains, and there the weather caught up with us for the only time on the tour.
We were snowed in in Eureka Springs, but luckily we had the day to spare before heading to Louisville where we played at Stevie Rays.
I want to make one general comment at large here: a pair of my friends from Louisville were turned away by inexperienced door help, even after I had specifically put them on the guest list.
Policy Decision: This is the first time I have ever had this brought to my attention. If this should ever happen to you, please insist that Slim has put you on the list and they should check with me if there is any doubt. If they won't budge, pay the cover and see me for a refund. This especially goes for Street Team members, who should let me or my manager know that they are coming to a show. This of course goes for folks like the officers of Blues Societies/Alliances/Fraternal Yahoos, with whose help we've had mostly good crowds all the way through the first tour.
In Michigan (Callahan's, in Auburn Hills, and the State Theater in
Kalamazoo) we tore up good crowds, and we were joined by our two midwest funtime families, the Dohms and the Shananaquets. Lessee, Tracy and Patty and Ed from the Dohms, and Tom, Punkin, sister Shannon and nephew Paul from the Shananaquets. As always, the Shananaquets gave us medicine objects of beauty and power. We hope our music is medicine worthy of the gifts.
Buddy's, in Chicago, was a little sad for me for about five minutes, when I relaized that this would be the last time we;d play the venue at this location. However, they're just moving down the block. We had about the best crowd we've had there, Taildragger and his band set the bar very high for us. Guitar Johnny, who plays with Taildragger, is one of several monstrous guitarists we played with and around on this tour. Another is the formidable J.P. Soars, who I first met on the Blues Cruise in January. More on him below.
I must thank Mikey from the club for holding on to my walking cane (I forgot to mention that I played the first seven gigs of the tour leaning on a cane that Bert Polchese gave me in Nashville when he saw I was stove up. I have had some orthopedic problems. I have a new chiropractor now, Patricia Johnson from Clarksdale, who has definitely upgraded my condition. While I was up in OKC to play the Gridiron Roast, I had been walking on my leg wrong because the right hip was out of alignment. Dr.
Johnson was able to set that straight. My right knee, having been affected by several weeks of misuse, erupted in an extended episode of tendonitis. However, since our gigs in Nebraska, at the Zoo Bar in Lincoln and at the New Lift, which (not to confuse anyone) is the former Murphy's, in Omaha, I have been steadily on the mend. I felt so much better by the time we got to Des Moines, I could not resist taking an end of the bass cab in loadout.
A special shoutout to my discussion-board friends dewey189 (Leslie, plus her husband Mike) and Mr. Puma (Peter, and his wife Gretchen) for coming out and having some fun with us!
After the triumphant Chi gig, we hammered on down to St. Louis, where we had a pleasant surprise-- Maquise Knox, a young, incredibly versatile bluesman we have met in past trips to St. Louis, was opening for us at Beale on Broadway. Beale on Broadwat is right across the street from one of our frequent past venues, BBs Blues Jazz and Soups, both in the shadow of the Cardinals; ball park.
Marquise has a record on the charts, featuring Michael Burks, right now that I would have been on if the weather hadn;t intervened. Back in December of '08 Marquise was recording in Salina Kansas. The night before I was supposed to arrive a tremendous midwest ice storm began, and carried on for more than 24 hours. I wanted so much to come to Salina, KS and take part. But the ol' trucker in me would not allow me to drive 215 miles due North into the teeth of an Oklahoma/Kansas ice storm, so I missed recording with them. Catch Marquise and buy his records. He's the real deal.
We did get over to BB's and visit with our buddies over there, including John, our fave club sound man, and got a bowl of their gumbo, beans n' rice, and an ice cream dessert that was super-cold, super-chocolate and super-good! And then, after our show was over, J.P. Soars and his band were still on across the street, and I came over and gave that crowd a little impromptu Call My Job and likethatthere.
That gave us two days to kill in cheap motels before we played in Lincoln at the Zoo. This was definitely the largest and best crowd I ever smelled-- uh, ever played for, oops, sorry. But did you know that a performer can smell excitement? It's not like excitement actually has an odor like a hot dog, or a skunk, or nitromethane. But we can sense it, and it makes our pulse increase. It's well known that I mingle with crowds before and during most shows. I am breathing with you. I am not just performing for you: I am you. And after we finished, we had a long evening of it watching Little Slim (Shawn Holt, Magic Slim's son who lives in Lincoln, and is not by any means little. Morris Holt, Slim that is, is about 6'6" and (last I knew) 365. Shawn Holt, Little Slim is "only" 6'2" and, he says, 310) tear up some blues and classic rock'n'soul with a group of VERY good local musicians, including one Levi Williams on guitar. Little Slim brought Michael Burks to mind a little bit besides, of course, his dad.
On to Murphy's. Waitaminnit, I mean the New Lift, in Omaha, always a favorite destination of Watermelon Slim and the Workers. Who woulda thunk there would be such cultural crossroads so far up and out in the middle of the country? Dust, corn and football, right? You got it, Omaha, you too, Lincoln! With a bunch of good candidates to choose from, I am narrowly awarding the best-audience-singing ribbon to the folks at the Zoo, though it might have been at any one of 10 places.
This little place never disappoints. Always a good turnout, a knowledgable turnout. And like any good place, it has its in jokes. The place responded when I mentioned that it was just like with the Arkansas Heritage Festival, call it anything they want, it'll always be The Biscuit. Well, this will always be Murphy's.
Two more to go, and the first was in our old favorite Blues on Grand, with Jeff Walker and Gearzy. We brought Jeff our first contribution to his lewd edible substances display, a half-pint of Muscle Milk-- milk for your muscle, we told him. To go with the picked pecker peppers (I couldn't make this up, folks). What great fans, and thank you Gary for that l'il hat tip sir! Another full howling house, and more fine audience participators. And by the way, like I told you at the time that I went ass over teakettle over that vocal monitor, let a professional do that part, don't try it at home! The next day, after loading out, Blues Revue publisher Chip Eagle, who lives in Des Moines, came by and took the band plus Gearzy out to a place called Baby Boomers that looked really yuppie but turned out to be a real good pancake house after all.
Which brings me up to Knuckleheads, in KCMO, playing our first outdoor gig of the year. April 3, and the weatherman was right, it never did get into the low 50s. Very pleasant to play in. We Workers were part of a triple bill, what a bargain, with the aforementioned estimable Soars band and the local phenoms, Trampled Underfoot, who have used winning the IBC competitions as springboards to the greater recognition of their talented selves.
I think most people know that I went down to Memphis a couple years ago for just one informal purpose: to celebrate at the KBA awards ceremony with Cam and Cary from Edmonton, where the blues festival there won best festival, with Fred Litwin of Northernblues, our label, which won the KBA for best label, and with Frank from Knucks, which won best club. We put our pinstripe suits on (except for Stovall, who is having a ball playing his second touring year with the Workers, and just wore his basic black) and proceeded to tear that place up. I see y'all up there in the second deck over the caboose, I'm not ignoring ya! Thanks Frank, Peter and all the great fans up there, and we want you to know we'll be back.
I just want to say that whatever you have read or heard, Watermelon Slim and the Workers is a working band. We have not "come back". We've never been away-- from music that is; last year's schedule was almost all outside the US. This year we are revisiting old favorite places, and have played a few already this-- uh, well it's spring now here in Mississippi, and for that I thank God.
There you go,
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
March 7, 2010
Slim, Thanks for the great show at Gip's 3-6-10.Hope to see you again soon.Good blues played from the heart.
Sonny
Bessemer, AL
Back To List
February 14, 2010
*Dear Blues fans,*
** *Blogs were made for analysis (or even, all too often, pontification). This will be one such. I was just interviewed by a representative of the Boston Blues Society, an institution I helped to initiate 20 years ago or so, and as I told him, there's a whole world of trouble in this world that gives me the blues. The blues is not just a matter of "ooo-oooh, my baby left me this morning, but I got a half a pint of whiskey in my pocket and I feel all right!" The "Big Picture" doesn't usually get covered any more deeply by blues-writers than to say "It's the same all over." But I have this pesky habit of thinking things all the way through, and so if you really don't like politics or economics or any of that crap, well, go download my music, or buy a CD or teeshirt, or something, while you're here at my website. Me and The Workers will be most grateful! For the rest, who can bear to sit through a bit more seriously written and intended analysis, read on.*
** ************************************************
_*/REFLECTIONS ON THE NATIONAL DEBT/*_
*//* *Let's be very clear about one thing: no matter how many, or how few, trillions the national debt is, nobody, neither borrower nor lender, nor observers from any nation, even the Chinese, who own the greatest portion of it (who the hell started the practice of "buying debt"?), expect that the figure will ever be repaid. The national debt is like a system of chits, or, maybe, of marks on the wall of a prison cell. Oh, I figure (without doing some hellified collation and figuring) that if a law were passed requiring that every person in the United States with one million dollars or more of assets of any kind divest themselves of one half of all their assets, that would raise some number of trillions of dollars (remember, a trillion is one thousand billion), and the rest of the world, stunned by such an example of personal, individual fiscal responsibility on the part of our plutocrats, would gratefully forgive the rest of the debt, or at least tell us that we have (without saying the word) an indefinite period to "repay" the rest.
But we all know that business as usual, with Uncle Sam-- us-- down at the bank "borrowing" money to start and conduct more and more wars and military actions, can not possibly BEGIN to pay even the "official" part of the debt limit that GWB doubled-plus, much less the ludicrous $120 trillion figure the Right Wing tosses around to scare and outrage people. And we cannot "spend ourselves out of debt" by buying more and more non-durable consumer items and using them faster and faster. That's one of the biggest pieces of unbelievable bull droppings anyone ever peddled, and Obama is as guilty of falling for that canard as Bush was. The "national debt"-- as though you and I, every American man woman and child, had gone down to the bank and borrowed each of us his and her own share-- can never be paid off under a consumer capitalist system. No wonder the big banks pay their executives insane bonuses, those executives do a good job at one thing, misleading the American people that such a payoff is ever going to happen, no matter how far into the remote future.
However, perhaps it is not too long ago for people to remember the term "peace dividend." Bring our troops home from wars, don't start others ("No entangling alliances"-- George Washington), let the United States military sit here and wait for an attack on the continent of North America which, as I have said over and over, is logistically impossible, due to the sheer size of the oceans which any serious attackers would have to traverse. Every day we are not fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would save us, very crudely, by today's fiscal standards, about 1/3 of a billion dollars!
How much money do we save by becoming isolationist rather than adventurist, interventionist, and imperialist, and over what period of time? Well, without doing a study for which would require to be paid, I will remind you that the figure of $100 million was bandied about by the Obama Administration in the immediate wake of the recent Haitian earthquake. At the time it was estimated that the mere deployment of an aircraft carrier (I do not know why an aircraft carrier is or should be necessary for disaster relief; designate two Holland-America or Carnival Cruise ships like the 80,600 ton one I was on a couple of weeks ago-- Carnival's got a couple even bigger than that-- for use as supply ships to bring all necessary goods and facilities to the stricken island nation, and they're in the neighborhood anyway, only as far away as Fort Lauderdale) to the region will cost up to one-third of the entire hundred million.
Any diehard capitalism-monger (to say nothing of any diehard actual plutocrat) should be able to do that most rudimentary piece of math and see that the inefficiency of that transaction is disastrous, ludicrous to consider. And if the logistical cost of moving ALL of our planes and ships and men around the world runs at that kind of percentage of appropriations-- or even a quarter, or 20%-- even a cave man could see that the results are not worth the expenditure. *
*
Those corporations which loan money to the US government WANT debt to spiral out of control! The executives who authorize those loans know that they will never, personally and individually, be liable for any of the total, not even their few tens of thousands of dollars that represents their every-man-woman-and-child share. They calculate, correctly, that if there ever is anything like root-and-branch reform of the global capitalist economy (don't hold yer breath, folks), they will long ago have taken their golden parachutes and jumped clear of the malfunctioning airship of state. The national debt will not be THEIR problem, now or in the foreseeable future.
Over beers in Old Taylor's Tavern in Eugene, Oregon, an AP bureau chief, whose name was Hugh van Swearingen, told me precisely that, in the course of our discussion about reform of the institution of the press, back in 1986. He said that he would be gone by that time, no matter when it occurred, and it would not be his problem, any more than the continuing necessary guarding and maintenance of nuclear waste disposal sites (isotopic half-lives are a bitch) centuries after the disposition of the waste would be his problem. I see no indication that that mindset, among the senior (i.e. richest, as well as most aged) movers and shapers of the US and world economy, is any different now than it was 23 1/2 years ago; in fact, the disease has progressed, rather than abated. It's all just a gigantic game of 3-card monte, in which the mark is told, on good authority, by the sharper, that he has an unlimited tab of money to bet that he can pick the ace when the sharper performs his sleight of hand.
So, blame Obama all you want, but what is at fault is not the president; the president is at the three-card monte table like all the rest of us. You may be sure that people like Blankfein, whatever his first name is, have conveyed through channels to that president, or any other politicians in doubt, that there will be NO-- none, zip, bupkis, nada, zero, rien du tout, zilch-- systemic changes in the capitalist system, that the way this nation does business is set in stone for all eternity, no matter what happens in the world.
Watermelon Slim
Clarksdale, Mississippi*
Back To List
February 9, 2010
howdy slim!
just finished reading your blog about the blues cruise..and looking forward to seeing you again when you come up to the OK state for a week.
will you also be at the OK Music Hall of Fame CD release party on 2/14? check out their facebook page for details.....otherwise i will just have to catch up with you on the 17th :))
fershure.....i'm down.
mj in rentiesville
Back To List
February 1, 2010
Well, Blues Fans,*
You've probably wondered if I would ever get around to writing
again. I've been working on getting my house in order in
Clarksdale, Mississippi, playing at Red's on the odd weekend, and
I'm about to spend a week in OKC in February to be part of the
Oklahoma Gridiron Roast, which has nothing to do with football,
but instead is a night of musical political satire that has been
going on in Oklahoma for 70-odd years. Great fun!
I'm writing this from my stateroom in the MS Eurodam, on the last
evening of the Blues Cruise me and my friend Ann Bailey have been
on for the last week. I have been one of the "surprise special
guests" on this Cruise, and before anyone asks, the answer is
yes, I am expecting that Watermelon Slim and the Workers will be
playing next year's. Contrary to any rumors or unintentionally
misleading literature you may have heard or read-- and in a week
on this boat I have spoken with hundreds of you all from the
States, Canada and other countries, and I am amazed at how many
people thought I was going out of the music business!--
Watermelon Slim and the Workers is a working band. I have had to
somewhat scale back my touring schedule because of health
concerns-- I get no insurance.
Michael Newberry left the band at the end of 2008, and my
long-time compadre from Boston, Chris Stovall Brown, played last
year's touring season as a Worker. We will be seeing you all in
the near future, starting on March 17 at the Oklahoma City
Limits, on Eastern Avenue, OKC.
I am having to exert great discipline not to gain weight on this
boat. I mean, you are not being assaulted with biscuits and gravy
everywhere, the food is fresh and first-rate. Elite food, really.
But there's so MUCH of it. I don't see how people eat three meals
a day.
Lessee: as a special guest, I have played with my new neighbor
Super Chikan, Billy Gibson (who gave me two beautiful harps that
I am continuing to get the most out of), Guy Davis (a genius), Magic
Slim, my old friend Little Annie Raines (and taught with Raines
and Gibson), the unearthly talent of Jason Ricci and his band
(these are freaking unbelievable musicians!), Joe Louis Walker and
Johnny Winter, made four pro jams and three amateur jamaramas. I'm
as common as a 1961-D penny, but better looking! Ann and I are
spending two extra days in Fort Lauderdale before her returning
to Chicago, and then me to Mississippi.
When we got off the Eurodam (that's the name of the ship), Jason
was playing a gig in Fort Lauderdale, so we had the unexpected
pleasure of catching him again, and taking one of my friends from my
political discussion board, www.debatebothsides.com
, along with us!
I want to thank everyone who's been writing to the blog, and say,
please, don't give up writing here! indeed, remember what I said
about wanting to communicate with real "friends" through there
instead of Facebook. I do, of course, check my Facebook occasionally.
A note to the Shed-Heds in Ocean Springs: I don't know what's
happening, but I sure hope to get down and see y'all again!
A note to Adam Enevoldsen-- sure hope we'll see you this summer!
Same goes for all y'all in Canada, gotta run, internet on this boat
isn't cheap,
God bless us all every one,
*Slim*
Back To List
January 14, 2010
Slim,
Oh...I've heard mere rumblings that you may be a surprise guest on the LRBC. If that dream of mine comes true, then this WILL be the best cruise yet! If not, then I look forward to catching you sometime, somewhere in 2010!
*Jenipher Sutherland
Back To List
December 31, 2009
Hey Slim..just opened my new issue of Blues Revue..Best of The Decade...and there you are at #19...congrats and Happy New Year
Van (the coffee man) Wilkin
Back To List
December 10, 2009
I caught Slim at Rentiesville too this year. I saw him in 2007 at the Riverfront Blues Fest in Ft Smith. I wish I'd known he was at R.Landrys, that is one of the coolest places to go, especially if you like Cajun food and beer. LOL.
I shot a video of Slim and it is on YouTube. Look for the one from smokindablues. I was working the musicians gate and met Slim when he drove up in his "honeywagon". I never laughed so hard in my life. A bonafide blues legend and he drives a beatup van with portable outhouse services advertized on the back windows. Hence the "honey wagon ."
Slim put on a great show Friday night, but Sunday night he reappeared.
Seems he went to Dallas on Saturday for a show and left his harps in Rentiesville. So he came back Sunday, caught a nap and hung out the rest of the night. His voice was shot but that didn't slow down his harp playing at all. The man was awesome. I got him to sign my harp case also. The man is the real deal. He didn't know me from Adam but we talked like he'd known me for years.
Darcy Hicks
Back To List
December 2, 2009
My last Slim show was the Dusk Til Dawn Blues Festival in Rentiesville, Oklahoma. And what a show it was! My husband and I went there to see Slim and we were not disappointed. Our first listen of Slim came about 2 years ago at R. Landry's Cafe in downtown Fort Smith Arkansas. I read in the local entertainment guide that he was coming, solo, I had never heard of Slim before, but it sounded interesting after I googled him. We were stunned. We bought the Wheel Man that night and Slim graciously autographed the cd for us. We listened almost daily but never caught another show. So when I read that Slim was headlining Rentiesville, we had to go, another first. WOW! We had the best time ever! My husband got his picture taken with Slim and we spoke, unfortunately, I was reduced to schoolgirl fodder, maybe next time I will be a little calmer. I can't believe that everyone doesnt know who Slim is already. We now own Escape From The Chicken Coop and No Paid Holidays, and they are already worn out. I can so relate to this music that it is scary. I live in Oklahoma, my dad is a 3rd generation truck driver, and I am a blues lover. Thanks so much Slim for the tunes, they mean very much to me in many ways. I can't wait for the next show, the next photo is mine and I'm bringing you a new arrowhead.
Nena Garrett
Sallisaw, Oklahoma
Back To List
November 25, 2009
Hello Mr. Homans ( or is it Slim? ). I just wanted to write you this letter telling you how glad i am to have "discovered" your music, i was searching youtube last night and found your Smokestack lightning video. Man! i dont think i have been this blown away since i discovered an album by John Lee Hooker ( my introduction to blues music ) in my mother`s record collection a few years back. simply stunning! it`s always inspiring to see "the real deal" i`ve been sick of guitar lately, close to giving up on my beloved/hated instrument. but finding music like this is what keeps me going. I live in Norway ( which i just found out you visited, nowhere near where i lived but anyway, DOH! bands/artists rearly come to Norway so i try to get my live fix through youtube, hehe. ) and we dont have much of a music scene here, and kids my age, im 16, only play death metal. I wonder how on earth i`m going to survive as a blues and jazz fan/musician. And at times its tempting to "sell out" but finding real artists like you inspire me to keep on the right track. i guess i just wanted to share this with you. i don't even know if you are going to read it, but its worth a try! Oh, speaking of reading, as i said, im only 16 and english is my second language so i know its far from perfect, but i think its readable.
I wish you the best for your future and your career!
PS: i was wondering what i was going to put on my christmas wishlist but now i know! all your Records=)
Regards
Torbj�rn R. Jenssen
Back To List
November 17, 2009
I know, blues fans,
I owe you a blog for our last Scandinavian tour, my recording session in Nashville, my swing through Florida with Mark Hummel, and my gig in Monmouth, Illinois, cortesy of Paul Schuytema and crew.
But until I write that (and I have plenty of time to do it now), here's something a little different. You folks in Oregon especially will appreciate this:
A Sporting Reminiscence, from a loyal Oregon Fighting Duck
When I was a Duck, Oregon football teams customarily finished about 6-5 or 5-6, playing the toughest schedule in the PAC-10. Now they perennially go to Rose Bowls, beat the Sooners, and do all sorts of poll-ranked stuff. BCS hasn't taken them seriously, even a couple-three years ago when they were 10-1. But their teams have been only occasionally disappointing this century.
I was captain of the U Oregon bowling team 1984-86. An obscure college bowling career, perhaps, but heck, just to play college sports at 35 years old would be a memorable experience for anyone. We did win the ACSU Westerm Regionals in 1986.
And by beating Oregon State at that, we gained some closure after the unsportsmanlike conduct of the OSU coach and team back in 1984. We had a dual meet with OSU at their lanes. All was fine until the end of practice balls, but then (I've never seen the like at any match I ever bowled!), the coach turned off all the lights in the bowling alley except for those over the lanes, which were quite dim.
Well, obviously, this coach has had his team practiing with this ruse, and I told him (I was 35, around his age, not the college kids') that this was unsportsmanlike. He answered (I couldn't make this up, folks), "You don't like it, put your ball in your bag and go home." So, Beavers, you are on your bucktoothed freakin OWN! May the Ducks clobber you with that tree you're gnawing on at every opportunity. Nyaaaahh!!
GO DUCKS!!!
William P. (Bill) Homans
aka Watermelon Slim
B.A. Journalism and History,
University of Oregon, 1986
Back To List
November 9, 2009
Hi Slim,
Just thought I'd say hi and let you know what a great show you put on in Calgary last summer, both shows - the one on the main stage and then again on the beer garden stage later on. Those performances made the day, and the crowd really got into the tunes. It was really nice of you to get out among the crowd and sign some CD's and chat a while. What are the chances that you may re-release your DVD "Ripe for the Picking"? I'd love to get a copy of that DVD.
/regards,/
*Larry*
Back To List
October 30, 2009
Hey compadre' .... what's kickin'? Hope you're doing well ... I noticed that there's another dog ..who likes your music .. besides Old Dan !!
I like what I am hearing and seeing at this site as well .....,.so that makes three !... dogs that is !
Please give a holler sometime .. when you get a chance ...I hope the time In Nashville was a roaring success !..If you manage to get up this way you are always welcome ...so don't be a stranger ....it's nice to see that video .. I wish Mickey had been there in person ... but he was there in spirit ..I like the pace !
..All the best ,,from, a tubthumper !
Back To List
October 18, 2009
HI SLIM...WE LOVE YOUR MUSIC BUT OUR DOG MUGSEY LOVES YOU MORE!!!
WE JUST FOUND YOU A FEW MONTHS AGO, HE STOPS WHATEVER HE IS DOING WHEN HE HEARS THE SLIM ON!
HE NOW EVEN KNOWS YOUR NAME...IF HE IS GETTIN INTO MISCHIEF WE SAY..."WATERMELON SLIM" AND HE GOES TO THE IPOD JUST WAITING FOR YOU TO SING, NOW OUR SUGARBABY HONEYBEE,(OTHER DOG} ALSO SINGS BUT SHE ONLY SINGS TO A FEW.MUGSEY HOWEVER LOVES EVERY SONG, HE STANDS RIGHT AT THE IPOD STARING AT IT THE WHOLE TIME, I DO WOOD CARVINGS AND HE WAS SCARED OF THE VISE WHEN IT MADE A NOISE LAST WEEK, SO I STARTED CALLING THE WOOD SPIRITS WATERMELON SLIM AND HE COMES BY ME NOW WHEN I AM CARVING,ANY ROOM HE IS IN NO MATTER WHAT HE IS DOING ....YOU RULE!!!!!
HE WILL RUN FROM ANOTHER ROOM WHEN HE HEARS YOU, OR IF WE SAY YOUR NAME. SO KNOW....YOU HAVE ONE DEVOTED "DOGGONED FAN".......OH US TOO OF COURSE!!!!
SUE
Back To List
October 11, 2009
hi slim. this is alan from the fredericton harvest jazz & blues fest.
ivan is still telling everyone what a good show & great time we had at fredericton. thank you so much for the autographs & talking to us. i couldn't believe you remembered me from two years ago. ivan works with me at the moncton hospital, & i turned him onto your music after i met you two years ago. he really wanted to see your show & possibly meet you, but the tickets were sold out. imagine our surprise & delight when i spotted you at the free show.after talking to you & then seeing you play with moreland & arbuckle was truely awesome. you guys were rockin'
& then the harmonica duel, wow! the fact that you were going to help us get tickets was very nice. we were able to get reserve at thew door as it turned out, but just the fact you were going to help really made it special. again thank you very much.
also slim, you mentioned a dvd coming up & i can't wait to add it to my collection. i would love any news on the dvd, & also if you ever get the chance to go to george's roadhouse in sackville, new brunswick, we will see you there.
all the best slim, & keep your wheels betwwen the lines, & the smokies of your tail.
Back To List
October 11, 2009
Well, it's been awhile, Blues fans,
But I know you all haven't forgotten me completely since August.
And what a jaunt it's been. I want to first thank everyone up in New Brunswick, and tell you that the highlights are too many to properly list. Lessee: I played with Keith Hallett-- twice, tore them places
UP!!-- Morgan Davis-- awesome, like playing with Robert Junior
Lockwood!-- Matt Andersen-- monstrous, music as big as he is!-- Steve Mariner and the Monkeyjunk guys-- felt like Chicago in that tent-- as well as my own lil gigs, including with the esimable veteran bluesmen Eric Bibb and Matt Minglewood, as well as (don't ever let 'em call you an "apprentice" again, buddy, lol) Newfoundland's Chris Kirby, and then closed the entire festival-- last song, last band, put the cap on it all, with Terrence Simien and HIS monster zydeco band. Terrence, we didn't have time to get you up here for this CD, but I am looking forward to recording with you, and you with me!
En addition, je m'ai amuse beaucoup en train de avarder en francais avec tous les francophones Acadiens, de Fredericton et de n'importe ou, partout en Canada. Je voudrais remercier especialement, avant de tous, lui qui m'a accompagne avec une telle degre de professionalisme et amitie, M. Andre Theriault! Plusieurs autres qui ont deserve de la gratitude especiale: M. Yannick Theriault qui m'a rendu une entrevue excellente pour la presse Canadienne francophone . C'etait hilarieux et mille fois interessante quand les deux Theriaults se sont rencontres! Je les ai confondus pendant plusieurs journees... Ils sont relations, mais il y a (pour l'information de vous tous) deux lignes de la famille Theriault, et ceux s'avait ete distinguees il y a deux cent cinquante annees!
(Besides all these, I sure did enjoy chatting in French with all the French-speaking folks from Fredericton and all over Canada who came to the Festival. I must especially, and above all, thank Monsieur Andre Theriault, who was my tour guide and accompanied me with such professionalism and friendship. Others who deserve mention are Monsieur YANNICK Theriault, who did a great interview with me for the Canadian French-speaking press. It was both hilarious and extremely interesting when Andre and Yannick finally met each other. They are related, but-- for everyone's information-- the two branches of Theriaults have been separated, to the north and south, for about 250 years. I had completely confused them throughout several phone and email conversations with each!)
And my dear friend, now, Father Gerry, of the Episcopal Church, in Fredericton. I went to Holy Communion in my church (yes, I am a baptised and confirmed Episcopalian) for the first time in a couple of years, and the traditional-service church I went to was filled with a proper sense of awe and holiness. Besides that, Gerry is a great blues fan. A priest and a fan, how can it get any better than that!? It was magnificent to chat about theology, and catch up on the latest within the Episcopalian Church. With thy spirit, Gerry!
Also, the folks at the Fredericton Museum of Art. How inspiring to stand before a 15-foot-high Salvador Dali work (I have told y'all before that he is my greatest influence in painting) and contemplate the universe through his eyes, plus two other smaller works, portraits of one of his many benefactors. Plus a bunch of other great art by, among many others, Monet, Gauguin, Pissaro and Canadian aboriginal artist Shirley Bear. I really did NOT want to go home! The only reason I was willing to leave Fredericton at all is because I knew I was headed for Scandinavia to meet the band for our last international tour of the year together.
I see a number of you have written to me about this magic several days in New Brunswick. A deep "thank you" to everyone who took the time to share moments and insights with me both in Fredericton and on this blog, and to all the wonderful volunteers and staff that make this festival one that me and my band always want to return to, year after year 9even though we are regretfully aware that EVERYBODY ELSE wants to come back every year too. We could start a whole social movement, take over the province maybe, if we got everybody up to Fredericton and just stayed there.
Now, I've gone through this festival first, but that means I have not yet dealt with the 4-fer of great appearances me and the Workers put in when we got back from the Italian-Swiss-English tour, and from losing my passport, lol (groan...) BTW the government got a new one to me within, can you believe it, the week I applied for it!) The first two were solo gigs for me, at Friday's in Wichita, and another of my continuing series of hoetown gigs at Greg Johnson's Blue Door, in Oklahoma City. Thank you Don Bean of Bad Bean Productions in Wicita! This was a full house, and I must say that Wichita is a place me and the Workers have always loved to
play-- indeed, I was playing in Wicita, at the Road House, before there was anything called The Workers, even before Fried Okra Jones!-- so we are looking forward to getting back up there next year. I don't need to say anything about the Blue Door-- I've covered it extensively in past
blogs-- except that it is the number-one venue for discriminating listeners of roots music in Oklahoma City. If you haven't been there, you better get your butt in there and catch some shows!
Next, The Workers headed east and played the best blues FESTIVAL in Oklahoma, the Dusk to Dawn Fesival in Rentiesville. This is the first year since D.C. Minner left us, and although we are not going to unduly mourn the passing of this legendary bluesman, because we would rather fight like hell for the living (and so would Selby Minner, I know), I must acknowledge that there will always remain a sense of loss as we revisit Rentiesville year after year. I've missed, lessee, 2 Dusk to Dawns, booked or unbooked, since 1998, when Honour Havoc and I showed up, and never actually made it into the Festival because we got stopped at the barbecue pit outside the gate and played for 4 1/2 hours straight, got fed, all the beer we wanted, even got paid! To all my dear friends there, Tiki, Harry and Debbie, LaMonica, Bronco, all the other staffers, vendors, and especially the fans (damn I'm getting dementia, at least Half-heimers, can't remember half the names I used to, even though I hang out with all of you nearly every year), many many thanks, it is so good to know you all! Oh-- there is mourning to do, of course.
Ray (damn, can't remember the last name), who helped found the festival with DC and Selby 19 years ago, and has played keyboards and headed the security detail since then, has died. THAT was an unexpected loss. R.I.P.
Finally, whoosh, it was off to Dallas, where The Workers played our very favorite Texas venue, The Pearl, which has become our Texas home. When we left Rentiesville I brought along one of the fine local Oklahoma watermelons we got there. For the second year in a row, the fellas there turned that prime melon into the very best martinis I have ever drank.
I'm not much for gin, and really don't like martinis, ordinarily, but watermelon juice is the very best thing that ever happened to gin! No vermouth needed whatsoever. Try it, y'all!
Texas Ray Isom, our long-time musical colleague going back to Fried Okar Jones days, was there to meet us, and I can tell you (whatever he says; don't aw-shucks me, Ray, you know better) he was in superb form, and played the whole second half of the night with us. Now, I must admit that I had forgotten my harmonica bag when I left Rentiesville the night before. I got down to the Pearl and suddenly discovered I didn't have enough harps to play the show!
I want to express my undying gratitude for the two harp-playing fans-- I don't, as usual, remember names, but one of them had on a teeshirt saying, "I play Little Walter's Mistakes"-- you two know who you are-- who supplied me with, respectively, C, D, and F, and Bb and Eb, Oscar harmonicas. And then left the club before I could return them and say thank you! I''ve played those harps in five countries since, fellas, and I hope to see you next year-- that's not a friendly gesture you did, that's a game-saver! I dropped Stovall off at the Dallas Airport, DFW, and headed back to Rentiesville to pick up my harps and boogie all night long with my friends there, and FINALLY, the next afternoon, headed back to OKC, to rest from all that traveling.
God bless you all, every one,
Slim
Back To List
September 26, 2009
Hello,
I just wanted to send a little note to say THANK YOU to Mr. Watermelon Slim for his fantastic performances last week at the Harvest Jazz & Blues Festival in Fredericton, New Brunswick. It was a great honor to meet Slim backstage (I was a volunteer at the Mojo Tent) and have an opportunity to chat about his work and travels. He is such a gracious gentleman, and his support and affection for Canada is very much appreciated. Thanks again and happy trails, Slim!
Cheers,
Milou
Back To List
September 21, 2009
slim thank you very much for the great shows.ivan was very impressed meeting you, as was i, but the fact you remembered me from 2 years ago was awesome.your shows were the highlight of a great festival.i was late for your solo slim show, but caught over half. i was at the monkey junk show & caught you there also.all the best slim, hopefully we can see you at sackville.ivan still hasn't stopped talking about meeting you.
Back To List
September 15, 2009
"Slim's vocals �grittier than a country dirt road, tender when they need to be ?are framed by excellent Nashville studio musicians." - /MOJO /
"There is no doubt this is a country album, complete with fiddles and steel guitar...But it is also unmistakably a Watermelon Slim album with his intense, world weary voice that sounds like it has covered a
lifetime of hard miles..." - /Blurt/
"A Nashville-waxed country album dominated by trucker songs. This detour works, in part because Homans worked long years as a truck driver and knows the hard-drinking, hard-driving ethos cold." - /Boston Herald///
"He's won a bunch of blues awards and accolades, but forges his music out of personal experience and tears up labels for his music like the big trucks he loves and once drove tear up the blacktop." -/ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/
"Whether he�s blues or country or whatever, he�s still raw and real, working with a well honed knife that cuts right to the bone as well as right to the chase." /Midwest Record Recap/
"A blues hero goes country on a trucker's ode to the road. (This album) finds the singer and slide guitarist revisiting the country of the Seventies, before the homogenization of the Garth Ages. The sound owes as much to Lynyrd Skynyrd as to Merle, Hank and Waylon." - /Blues Revue/
"Watermelon Slim is one of the most unique artists I have ever worked with. Blues and roots music is all about feel and he has loads of it, there will never be another like him, that's why he's special." Gary Nicholson
Back To List
September 15, 2009
Slimbo and the gang,
It was great seeing ya'll down here in Big-D last weekend. My family and friends certainly had a blast that night! I had a wonderful time as well setting in with the band, making some great music and catching up with my old friends. Slim, Stovall, Cliff, and Ronnie Mac.......You guys are awesome! Glad to see the man, Chris Hardwick, could make it out too.
Anyway, I'm very thankful we could all get on stage together and I hope we can do it again sometime soon.
Be careful on the road fellas and take good care.
Texas Ray
Back To List
September 3, 2009
hey slim and the workers,
sorry i took so long to get back with you all about the chicago gig and madison ind gig. we had the time of our lives. tracy and i were in pain not being able to dance at chicago but the dance floor was being used for a make out pit and we decllined. it was a wonderful show both places. you all made our month. got the new cd at chicago but could not listen until home, 96 jeep, no cd player. we have listened to it over and over agian. slim it makes us weep and other songs makes us laugh. thank you from the bottom of our hearts for this intuitive collection of words and music. this is why we break our a---"s to travel where ever you are to see you. i am so glad we met your friends the shananaquets they are so very nice, would love to meet your friends the lavictoires we are obviously people of impeccable taste. it was so much fun to run into you at the rest park. all four of you are our ideal in music and personality. the very best to you all and your families. god bless you all and may god hold you all safe in the palm of his hand until we meet again, your friends and fans ed, patti, tracy and jason dohm, ps to be mentioned on the cd as people who support you and the music and the hard work that goes into it was such an honor thankyou so very much, it has been our pleasure.
Back To List
August 31, 2009
Hello Mr. Slim!
After listening to "Escape From The Chicken Coop" a few times I should have known there was an Opry star lurking behind the Blues. As with all the albums, I enjoy every cut. My only question is where and when I'll get this new release signed. I'm the guy that keeps trying to get you back to Cajun's in LR and bringing your discs to you to sign. The most recent being at the last BMA awards in Memphis. They always save the best for last... Please try to come back to Little Rock soon.
Back To List
August 31, 2009
Well, blues fans,
You're probably wondering when I'm going to get around to blogging again. The time is now.
Suzzara, Cazorla, Spain, Brescia, Trasimeno, Corciano, Losone, Switzerland, Cambridge, our last tour ended. I don't think that's the right order, but I know we played all these places. 13th century castle courtyards (with Ana Popovic!), historic bullrings-- NOBODY gets to play places like this!
N.B. The mayor of Trasimeno is the best-looking politician that ever got a vote. Sarah Palin, hide your stupid face! Nadia has you whupped! We the Wprkers are forever grateful for her hospitality, and for that of all the European staff, volunteers, hoteliers, restaurateurs, and particularly the rabid fans from all the countries we've visited. We're just blessed people to get around to as many enchanting places as we have. Thank you all /des fonds de nos coeurs!/
Sometimes, things just don't work like you want them to. Another familiar way to put it: "one 'aw shit!' wipes out a thousand 'attaboys'". After a magnificent time on the hills of southern England picking blackberries and /agaricus campestris/ mushrooms (what beauties!), and one last great European gig on this swing, back we went to the airport. What misfortune should occur at Heathrow but that I could not find my passport! I had to do the conservative thing, which was to miss my plane to the US, and go to the US Embassy where they fixed me up with a temporary passport so that I could leave England.
That done, with the greatest humiliation, I reclaimed my baggage, which I had had to leave with a photo shop near the embassy (you can't bring large pieces of baggage into the embassy, for obvious post-9/11 reasons). How frustrating, after tearing my luggage apart several more times, to find my now-dead passport in a hole in the luggage I had already checked several times! I now have my new, regular passport, and it probably helped that I hadn't actually LOST my passport, just misplaced it. Cost me a total of $270 to get it, but that's chickenfeed next to the importance of the passport to me. Now, though, I'm ready to see y'all in New Brunswick and to Scandinavia for the final visit of 2009, next month (or this month by the time you read this...).
I slept (kind of) all night in Heathrow, woke up and luckily found a plane with one seat left on it to take me to Washington, but when I got to Oklahoma City, United/USAir had still sent my luggage to Chicago! That is 3 United flights in a row my luggage has not arrived with me in Oklahoma City. The pilots and flight attendants are fine, but I wish I could do as slipshod a job at my music as the baggage people do at their jobs. After we got back from Europe, it was almost immediately time to run off to the west coast, with a stop at one of the Workers' favorite cities to play of all, Calgary, Alberta. On arrival, we could not avoid seeing how we had been expected by Calgary in the local newspaper. Repeatedly we ran across ecstatic fans who said they had come to the festival specifically to hear us! We love you, Alberta, and we'll be coming back till you get heartily tired of us, lol! Hoogie and family, we're surprised you didn't drive up, see ya next time. Jim from High Lonesome, glad we got a chance to tag up, maybe we'll get to play Winnipeg next year!
From Calgary, it was on to Sonora, California, which is kind of near Modesto, but not really near anything at all, just like Cazorla, Spain isn't really close to Cordoba! There, I met my old running buddy Joe Reno (not his real name, he changed it years ago, to, like me, help terminate some past shady connections), whose number I now need again (Joe, hope yer reading this!) because I lost my cellphone 2 weeks ago! Gimme a holler, Joe!! I got a chance to stop in at the trailer and say hi to Johnny Winter, who was the headliner, and his band. He tells me he's going to do his best to make sure we get to record together-- you can look forward to THAT, blues fans!
Finally, the next night, we came back to Biscuits and Blues in San Francisco, where the Workers had not played since Ike Lamb was still the guitarist. It was a night of seeing old friends and not seeing others. Louis S. Davis, the number one bartender in all of San Fran (head keeper at the Union Country Club) regrettably could not attend because of a bad case of gout. However, my political-debate-board comrade Neuroburger brought his dad with him, and they had a ball! There is new ownership at B+B since we were last there, and the food has only improved, along with the hospitality we had come to enjoy, and that includes the nice old hotel we got to rest in.
I want to mention to all fans and staff that folks should buy their CDs directly from myself or my band members, rather than going to the CD stores that seem to be more numerous these days at festivals. Next year, hopefully, we will have a new arrangement with venues where we will at least be the wholesaler who sells to these people.
I have been telling people about the DVD the Workers recorded in Clarksdale in May '07 for a couple of years. I hope to tell you that it will soon be out. Everybody's got money-flow problems. I hope y'all like the new record, /Escape From the Chicken Coop/. I'll be recording the followup in October. And there are other recording surprises coming, some of which I have been promising for quite a while. My wife Honour Havoc will be coming to Nashville in October to help me record two great songs that some of y'all may have heard over the years, /Please Take This Cup From Me/, and /Good Ol' Boys Never Change/. That record, no name yet, will be out next year.
There is so much more I could probably say, if I could focus on it. You Dohms are irrepressible. Dohms and Shananaquets came out in force for my gigs at Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago (the collard greens are as good as ever, viva el jefe!) and the Ribberfest, in Madison, Indiana (not Wisconsin, they'll have you know).
To all my latest correspondents-- Doug and Carl from Calgary, Terry from NC, Chris from Chicago, Jim from Cal., Ana et Yanick, J-P et Mylene du Quebec, Brent and family from Madison, Angela y Juan de Valencia, Steve from Missouri, any I've forgotten-- thank you so much for stopping by and saying hi! And thank you in advance for letting your friends know to write here, to the blog, and not to those silly Face/Space things.
Till I see you in Fredericton, or Dallas, or Lillestrom, or Florida, or wherever, God bless you all,
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
August 29, 2009
Hi Slim
Thanks for the pleasure of playing with you on guitar during our impromptu jam at our condo in Mont Tremblant during its blues festival. I�ll never forget it. Hope to see you soon.
Silvano Lapenna
july 2009
montreal, quebec
Back To List
August 25, 2009
Hi Slim,
I had the great fortune to work the on the stage crew for you and the boys in Calgary�� a true pleasure to meet you and hear both your performances. Just got back from the Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Fest in Salmon Arm, BC where Cedric Burnside and Lightning Malcolm played the stage I was working�� great show�� the folks at the Dusk ���til Dawn in Rentiesville are in for a treat with you, CB and LM, AND Zac Harmon!
(By the way�� must have played ���Wheel Man?�� about 5 times complete on the trip��)
Take care and good luck on the road!
Cheers!
Carl ��?Calgary, Alberta
Back To List
August 22, 2009
really enjoyed slim's show in chicago last nite at buddy guy's. you are one awesome blues harp and slide guitarist!!! came to chicago from ohio and when i found out you were playing.... i was there! thanks so much for an enjoyable, kick-ass nite!!!!
lola and tim from ohio, chris from chicago
Back To List
August 22, 2009
Mr. Watermelon Slim,
What an honor to have shaken your hand at the Sonora Blues Festival August 8, 2009 after your workshop. You are such a delight and so personal, it is if we have known one another a lifetime. My friends and I are huge fans and I have such a new found appreciation for your stories having been able to get a glimpse in your life. My wife had not heard your music and now is a fan ?but the story telling and matter of fact sincerity is what she and the rest of your fans love about you. I have a brother who is your age and is a Vietnam Veteran as you are - the similarities and paths that you both have endured and crossed in life are amazing. He too is a blues man and musician, I am so proud to have met you in person and be able to share my story of listening to you with my brother. I thank you for your service to your country, your god given talent, and your truly humbling stories of life.
Jim in California
Back To List
August 21, 2009
Dear Slim,
I am a poet from North Carolina who has written a poem about you and your music that is in my new collection, /Telling Tales of Dusk/, (available at www.Press53.com or www.Amazon.com).
I was sitting in my car in a parking lot in Lewisville, North Carolina, when an announcer came on the radio talking about this guy named, "Watermelon Slim," a name that fired up my imagination immediately! Then he played some of your music and I went out the next day and bought your CD, /Watermelon Slim and the Workers/. My favorites on this CD are /Devil's Cadillac/ and /Eau de Boue. /I was so inspired by your wonderful music and truly fantastic name�that I wrote a poem called, "Watermelon Slim," and thought I�d share it with you. Like I said, it�s in my new book, /Telling Tales of Dusk/, which I guess you could say, sort of showcases my lifelong "love affair" with the American South. Some of the titles of poems in the book are, "Papa Fell off the Porch," "Fisherman," "A Mother Laments Her Daughter's Tattoo," and "The Belle of Bourbon Street."
Anyway, below is my tribute to you and your music. Thank you for giving me such great inspiration!
With very kind regards,
Terri Kirby Erickson
www.Press53.com
Watermelon Slim
?2009, by Terri Kirby Erickson
(Excerpt from /Telling Tales of Dusk/)
Somewhere out there, Watermelon Slim
is working a juke joint, easy as a slide. Smoke
swirls around the room like mist off
a swamp�in dimly-lit corners where sugar daddies
chomp on cigars, women pale as napkins
draped over their laps;
above the heads of cowboys tapping
their steel-toed boots,
young girls swaying on the dance floor?br />
eyes closed�hip bones close to punching holes
in their skin-tight jeans,
middle-aged mamas bumping and grinding
their booze-addled husbands,
and blue-collar workers sitting so still at their
scarred-up tables, cigarettes burn to ash
between their fingertips.
They�re all listening hard to this craggy-faced,
truck driving melon picker, his riffs moving
through their heads like slow-roving sidewinders?br />
hungry for the next spoon-full of ain�t got
nobody, baby done left me blues.
Back To List
August 18, 2009
Hey, Them Dohm's are on the lose again.
We will see you guys at Legends on Friday and Then In Madison on Saturday. Ok, I KNOW we are a little obsessive compulsive when it come to y'all. But we just can not help it. 6 states, and 12 shows later. Oh Yeah.
You guys are probably sick of seeing us!! I can't wait to purchase the NEW CD. I have been wanting to order it as soon as it came out, but I like to get in person so you can sign it!! I am Thinking of making me a new slim shirt to wear. Yippee. We guys, Keep her between the lines and we will see you Friday.
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
August 17, 2009
Dear Slim,
Was fortunate indeed to be able to catch your show at the Calgary International Blues Festival. This was the first time hearing you and truly loved your show. Thanks so much for the great time, it was one of the highlights of the festival for me.
Cheers from Canada,
Doug
Back To List
August 12, 2009
Wow!
This new album could be best described as a metamorphosis of a man, who's had a second chance at life, that is now in fourth gear and cruising on the highway of life!
His Joie de Vivre is contagious!
Ana & Yanick Theriault
Back To List
August 9, 2009
Greetings from Madison Indiana.... Slim, my family and i can't wait to see you @ this years Madison Ribberfest! You are going to love our little town by the river there is much to do and see, i hope you will have time to experience Madison...Wishing you nothing but the best and safe travels until then!
Brent Thacker and Family
Back To List
August 9, 2009
Dear Mr Holmans,
Just a short note to say thank you very much for your wonderful show at the Cambridge Folk Festival on Sunday. To my shame whilst I'd heard your name (well your stage name, obviously) I'd never picked up on anything you had actually produced. I'm embarassed to say that I did not catch the names of all the tunes you played, but one I did - Blackwater - is playing now (streaming from your web-site - cheers Sir!): excellent and moving.
Can I also say that it is refreshing (and I say this as bit of leftie who has never had to face the prospect of military service) to find some someone with a strong people supporting attitude who also recognises and honours our brave service men and women (in both our countries "lions lead by donkeys").
Very best wishes,
Tony Downham | Moortown | Leeds
Back To List
August 7, 2009
Dear Slim;
My wife and I enjoyed inmensely your show in Cazorla and we are also very pleased to read that you liked Andaluc�a (even in summer is too hot!).
En espa�ol: s�lo quer�amos saludarte y darte las gracias por tu m�sica y por tu simpat�a. Esperamos volver a verte pronto por aqu? Recuerda, la pr�xima vez vienes a Valencia.
Un abrazo.
Juan y Angela.
Valencia. Spain.
Back To List
August 2, 2009
Good grief, ESCAPE FROM THE CHICKEN COOP has to be your best CD to date. I own all of your CDs and have had the pleasure of seeing you live. This one takes the cake. It don't get no better.
Steve Schmitt
Springfield, MO
Back To List
July 25, 2009
Blues fans,
We have been immersed in Latin culture here in Spain, and I find my Spanish is not so bad, though I have not had much real opportunity to speak and listen to the language since last summer. However, I am now learning Italian too, and I have already conducted a full-length interview in that language. /Potro dicare a tutti miei amici Italiani, noi amiamo tu paese e tutti gli aficionati che encontrati in la Italia! E una lingua piu facile che el Spagnolo, e che i frances! Voglianno essere ritornati li prossimo anno! Fontinia, Atri, Milano, Narcao (all'isola Sardegna)-- que bellezza! /We also got to touch base with our good friend Ana Popovic, and got to schmooze with her truly international band-- members from France, Holland and Italy (she's from Croatia, of course...)
And here in Spain now, I am sitting in a lovely hotel, 10 minutes from the venue at Cazorla, in the middle of miles and miles of olive trees. Olive trees as far as one can see. The guys have gone back to Cazorla to hang out with Bily Branch, Lurie Bell and their guys. We played in a bullring, a plaza de toros, in which perhaps the greatest matador of the 20th century, El Cordobes, used to perform. However, I must say (as confirmed by two Portuguese journalists with whom I conducted an hour-and-a-half interview MOSTLY in Spanish today) that the stars of that show are the bulls, not the matadors. At tapas today I drank a toast /a los toros bravos/.
We are so blessed to be able to see and do all we do as The Workers (Las Obreros). We must say /muchas gracias, molto grazie, per il tuo benvenuto/su bienvenida!! Quattor piu spettacoli italiani/, then one in England (looking forward to that!) and then home for a couple of days before we head to Calgary and California.
I've had some physical problems. I will report more on that later. Doesn't hurt my singing and playing in the least.
I am going to write much more about Winnipeg and Montreal (/mes amis Quebecois m'ont offert beaucoup d'amitie!/) But this batery on Cliff's computer is dying, so I must promise you all more tales of the road later-- /dopo-- mas tarde-- bientot./
God bless everybody, see you soon,
Slim
Back To List
July 19, 2009
thank you for the great show in mt tremblant.i bout your record watermelon slim and the workers.it s a masterpiece.you took a picture with my 5 kids.they are crazy about the blues and very happy to have a chance to meet the artist that plays it.thats a big motivation to continue their music lesson.i think they very lucky...
merci
j-p ,mylene and family
Back To List
July 10, 2009
To Watermelon Slim,
Hey Slim when you heading back down to NZ for some real serious fishing let me know bro, Keep in touch.
Craig (from the Darcy Perry Band)
Back To List
July 6, 2009
Hi, blues fans,
I just got off the planes (four of them, US Air and United combined to lose my baggage...) from Norway. Takk, takk, all of our great friends in that happy land! What great gigs we had, first in Lillestrom, and then at Skanevik. Can't believe we couldn't stay longer. I understand we will be returning in September! Can't wait.
Not to forget, we had two more great gigs in Illinois a couple weeks ago! We can do it at The Fox (LOL)! Nice also to run across our old friend Sugar Blue playing there! Sound for both these shows was about as good as sound can possibly be. And finally, after all these years, backline folks are getting the idea that Watermelon Slim and the Workers must not be offered Fender Twins and Twin Reverbs to play through.
BTW speaking of amps, in Lillestrom I played guitar through the first Vox amp I ever liked. It worked as good as my favorite, the Blues Junior, or my manager's 1970 Music Man! Very nice, thank you Paul-Erik!
Christian, if you read this, I owe you 400 kroner, and you shall at least have it in September. Sorry we didn't meet up after I came back down from Eva Bentsen's studio.
And for anyone that wants to know, the Blues Blowtorch Society, which sponsored our gig at the Bloomington IL Treehouse, is a blues society that really WORKS. As an unelected board member of the Oklahoma Blues Society, I offer them my sincere congratulations for a job monstrously well done!
I want to share my reflections upon this piece of political news:
******************
*BREAKING | Gov. Sarah Palin Announces Resignation *http://www.truthout.org/070309Z?n
http://messenger.truthout.org/ss/link.php?M=237663&N=74&C=b3cb8656cc24077e21ef3a0e5ac48883&L=528
Jonathan Martin, Politico: "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced Friday that she was resigning her office later this month, a stunning decision that could free her to run for president more easily but also raises questions about her political standing at home."
******************
/After all the ethical questions dogging Sarah Palin, and her Peyton Place of a family, none of which will ever go away, we are left with a woman who had never received a U.S. passport until the year before she was the Republican vice presidential candidate. She has accumulated no more experience potentially valuable to a presidential candidate, or to a statesman, since she and John McCain went down to defeat.
What kind of crash course can she possibly hope to embark upon now, in order to be prepared to seriously contend for her party's nomination for the leadership of the most powerful, for good or bad, nation on the planet?
Surely responsible Republicans-- and I personally know a number, even though I am a lifelong leftist-- will not allow a candidate this weak in every other constituency besides hard-Right fundamentalist Christians. I liked this comment made by an earlier responder to the news of Palin's decision:/
/******************
*I wish her all the success.* Fri, 07/03/2009 - 23:25 ?Americonned (not
verified)
/I wish her all the success. The GOP needs another trip to the wood shed. These people are too dumb to know they are the minority, still think they run things. Well, at least she is running! Like a wolf under a helicopter. //
/**********************/
/
What a great image. However, I must qualify Americonned's opinion (I think his name is great): the real-money Repubs are not so dumb. And they are in the helicopter that will do for her, although she's already being pursued by a whole fleet of tabloid whirlybirds.
I mean, she's entitled as an American to run, and apparently she must have recently gotten some significant contributions, or at least pledges of contributions, to her political war chest. That is, if her decision to quit her governorship is not just part and parcel of, as the DNC man said, "a pattern of bizarre behavior."
Sarah Palin has become the very nexus of comedy and deadly serious politics. But if somehow she is calculating that the undeniably universal name recognition that she has through a multitude of lowest-common-denominator sources is going to work positively for her in 2012, she is terminally mistaken.
Her best political strategy is to wait for 2016, her age and health being so much on her side. If she hopes to be taken seriously by anyone but the Rapture crowd, she must educate herself, and become a credible stateswoman.
She could do that in five or six years, if she used this post-gubernatorial time in one or more positions of diplomatic import.
Not an ambassadorship, mind you! But some position in which she could gain some education in dealing with people totally foreign to her past experience might give her at least a shred of the credibility she utterly lacks.
I don't think the Republican Party, having seriously wounded itself in 2008, wants to outright blow its elephantine head off. But if large amounts of crucial Republican donations are diverted to the campaign of Sarah Palin, the Party will be squeezing the trigger. If Republicans actually NOMINATE her: ka-BOOM!
Naaahh. Impossible. Wolf under a helicopter. The Repubs'll dirty-trick her if the ethical stuff doesn't do her in./
/ /
/******************/
/ /
/Winnipeg, Montreal, Italy, Spain, England, Calgary, and California in the next month. Yee-hah! Lordy, so many more chances for the airlines to lose Workers' stuff! I'm glad that at least the pilots know what they're doing./
/ /
/God Bless Y'all,/
/ /
/Watermelon Slim/
Back To List
July 2, 2009
Hey Slim and The Workers,
It has a couple of weeks since I have written on the blog. I just can't THANK Y'ALL enough for a GREAT weekend in Illinois. The sound in Aurora was GREAT. We video taped it and I can't get enough of it. I am patiently waiting for Chicago and Madison. I am still trying figure out how to do. Both venues? I will get in both shows. No doubt about!! Hopefully there is a dance floor, dancing on a chair is dangerous, lucky for me the guy to me left was paying attention and did not let me hit the floor. (I was out of control, I fell). I can wait to get the new CD!! Hopefullu the DVD will be done soon!!
Hope you guys have a safe trip, and see you in August. Happy 4th of July
God Bless
Sunflower Studio Photography
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
June 30, 2009
Hello there
It's Marco here, do you remember last year's Ameno Blues Festival in Italy?
Just known this year you'll play 3 dates in Italy, I'll be there to party with You and your band and I'll bring You back Your shirt You left me ah ah ah
See Ya!
Ciao
Marco
Back To List
June 22, 2009
Dear Watermelon,
I caught your show at Blues on the Fox. Your one hell of a jammin redneck, compliments to your band - tight and unique. A lot of the Blues sound the same; you guys mix it up well. Thanks for coming to Illinois ?I�ll see you at Buddy Guy�s in August, and for anybody who has never been to Legends�well your missing a true Chicago treasure. Southside Blues, many of the greats have been there. Like Watermelon Slim on August 21, 2009�don�t miss it. Peace!!!!
Dave Mutert
Back To List
June 21, 2009
Hey Gang,
We are driving home after an amazing weekend! I could not wait to write on the. Blog, so I am typing on a very tiny keyboard on my Blackberry. After this weekend we have seen Slim and the workers in 6 states!!!! Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, and Iowa. After all the traveling, I personally am not able to give you my favorite show. I LOVE everyshow!! I am mesmorized by every
performance. You see to amaze us everytime!! You sound was amazing in Aurora, we were a little disappointed that we could not dance. We can not just sit in a chair, but we were force to? My goodness it was hard not to climb on the stage and dance. I just want to say to Slim, Patti and I will never wash our lips, We are honored to be Kissed by "The Watersmellonn Slim".(OMG that was classic) I will write more when I get back to my desk and actually look at a screen bigger than 2 inches square.
Take care and we miss you all ready!!
The Dohm's
Back To List
June 20, 2009
Hi Slim
We caught you first time Swindon 12 Bar Swindon UK, and then followed you November 08 to Omaha Nebraska Murphys Lounge. We notice you mention a new drummer we are behind with any news so why has your line up changed with respect to your drummer. Looking forward to the Chicken Coup album.
Martin and Loraine Swindon UK
Back To List
June 18, 2009
Hey Slim,
I see you're going to be at the Calgary Festival this August.
They have a great festival there. Am planning to be over there for Friday & Saturday of the festival so will be seeing your set.
Are they putting you up at the Ramada downtown? That's usually where they have the bands stay and that's where I'm staying.
Can't wait to get the chance to listen and talk to you guys again. If I can catch up to Dale I'll get some pictures of your time in Regina.
See 'ya in August,
Dan Silljer
Regina Delta Blues Association
Regina Sk
Back To List
June 15, 2009
I just had to write you again. For the last two weeks or so my wife and I have been consumed with you from your music to everything about you. In the mornings when we get in the car (we carpool) the first thing we do is start playing Slim. When I get to work I have to listen more on the computer. And on the way home, yes, more Slim. You have opened a whole new world of music for both of us. We've both liked the Blues but nothing like this! Thank you!
When we have a free moment while at lunch or on a break, we look for more nuggets of you online. We feel almost like we're stalking you. :-)
Tonight we were listening to you while doing some work in the house. I had the media center PC so loud the bass was rattling the gutters and I could hear you almost half way down the driveway. I have a few favorite songs. Of course there is "They Call Me Watermelon Slim" and "Scalemaster Blues" but there is just something about "Truck Holler #1".
I can just sit back and close my eyes and imaging riding in a big Freightliner parting the fog of the swamp on a hot steamy windy road deep in the Mississippi Delta.
We can't wait to see you when you�re closer to us. See you then...
Mike & Sue Sheffer
Back To List
June 14, 2009
Well, I did promise some more blog hyeah direckly. I am in the final leg of a trifecta of weekend wimpouts. I said I'd be someplace each of these days, Friday through Sunday, and didn't get out to any of them. So, Candye Kane, Mike Hardwick, Miss Blues, and the LaVictoires-- geez, I'm sorry. I must learn to get off my mushroom butt.
In fact, though (if not in amelioration), part of why I don't get out as much is because I've become painfully aware of my own contribution to the energy net problem. Heck, I love to drive. I'm the Wheel Man. I'll drive any piece of equipment anywhere it can be reasonably driven.
But I'm getting uneasy about my net petroleum addition to the world's depletion and pollution, and that includes, of course, flying, which I do quite a lot of as a touring musician. Now, the argument is ready, "well, even if you waren't on that plane, a bunch
of others are, so you're really not responsible for it." No, I respond, if I've got a ticket, and I'm sitting on that plane, over the Atlantic or wherever, I'm responsible. And it is beginning to weigh on me. Just saying...
I'm going to do something I might have been doing from the beginning, but I think I got into the expository rather than the interactive style (mostly), and I have probably not answered individual blog-answerers enough over these several years. So, starting with
Old friend and trucking buddy Michael Murdock-- I wanna hear it! Thanks, pardner...
The Dohms-- see you in Illinois (the rest of you can make a bet on it)...
Mike-- TYVM for buying those CDs! But dunno when back in N. VA. area. ;-(
Lyn and Gerard-- always great to see y'all
Susie-- well, Indiana, anyway...
Boomer!! Dunno how I'll make it back to Crystola, tell othah brothah Darryl Maggs hi--
James Mather: August 2, Cambridge! One day only!
Tammy-- uhoh, which kinda fine whixkey are we talkin' about?? LOL
Alain-- I am touched by your letter, and if anything I may have sung was helpful, well, God bless us, every one.
/Mes Ouvriers et Moi,/
// /Nous nous avons vachement amuse de toutes nos experiences dans la Belge, la France, la Luxembourg et les Pays-Bas. Tous les gens que nous avons recontre nous ont trait comme le petit royeaute./
Oh, Alain, it's a Regal dobro, a cheap (but good-working) Chinese knockoff of a once reputable American brand. The amp there was a Blues Junior, I think. That's the combination I like best, anyway, though I've been using a 1970 Music Man in American gigs for a while now.
Euga-- Dank je!
Bobby Jelts-- brrrr-rrr! Well, maybe-- I was hoping to go play in Spitzbergen this fall, so stranger things have happened...
Texas Ray-- we had fun at the awards, dint we?
Punkin and all Shananaquets-- aho, and hope you can get over to Chicago at least, later on,
Jack, Roger Percival, Colin downunder, Jenny, Susan and Ian, all TYVM for being in touch with kind words, always hoping to get in your areas, ESP. Australia/NZ (and that goes for ALL y'all...)!
D.Edward Williams, write me and I will tell you about some research *-).
Rusty and Kendall-- just wore your teeshirt a couple weeks ago!
Peter Germain-- wow, glad ya like 'em! You grok what I'm doing, awrite...
Well, that get's me back to the beginning of this year, and if I'm missing anybody-- well, write to my blog!
Thank you all, blues fans, Americans, Europeans (including my gracious hosts recently, the Turks), Down-Unders, wherever you may be. I believe it has all been worth it. I can assure you that you will see me again. Sometime. I'm realistically going to be working
less gigs for the next several years, but if I haven't said it, I am NOT retiring. I'm just having to work slower now.
Well, lessee-- the PowWow was the usual high point of the gigging spring. Mark and Big John have got a fine new room where the Workers played three "on" nights. Business in Casinos, I understand, is off nationwide, whether you're Donald Trump or an independent
tribal operator. But if you're going to play your now-squeezed disctretionary funds in a gambling-hell, the Paragon Casino, in Marksville, Louisiana is the place to make a pilgrimage to. The service you will receive really IS what it appears to be, and happily
rendered; the food narrowly, but definitely, outshines the Ameristar or Isle of Capri. You don't have to be in Nawlins to get the best. I will make no warranty as to the looseness of the slots, but there's no brake in the roulette wheels, anyway, lol.
Here's you a taste, more later. God bless everybody,
Slim
Back To List
June 13, 2009
Hey gang,
The Dohm's here we will be drive to Illinois to Next weekend to catch both of your shows. We are so EXCITED to see all of you and meet the new drummer. Save a seat up front for us and some talk time. Slim can't wait to scratch you back!!
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
June 8, 2009
Hey slim it's michael murdock with a hello from up in Burlington Vermont I got to send you a cd of my band the heckhounds. We makin' a new one and getting the tunes down. I know you'll love it. Say hi to cris for me from mike, "the travelin' salesman" as silas used to say. I play a bit around Vt but the market is tough up here for blues and we be playing country blues originals and covers with a drummer you'll dig it. I am inspired by you so I keep playing. I'm making a solo record in a few weeks so gotta do it while we alive. Keeping the blues alive and all yer bud
Michael murdock
Back To List
June 7, 2009
Hey Slim,
I heard "Hard Times" on Sirius about a month ago and knew I needed to find out more about you and The Workers. I checked out your website and immediately bought all of your albums from Amazon. My wife and I love your music. In looking at your scheduled performances, I didn't see any close to us. When are you going to be on the East coast again? Any chance of being in the Northern Virginia area?
Thanks,
Mike
Back To List
June 1, 2009
Hello there, y'all,
I thought I would share this with you. The new CD has been put to bed, fussed over by all, me included, but it's remarkable how close we really all started in our idea of making, essentially, country-and-western records for NorthernBlues Music. Fred Litwin, Chris Hardwick, and producer Miles Wilkinson, a friend of Fred's, all had to keep up a steady drumbeat of how I ought to make this record. I reminded them, dutifully I think, that I'd be releasing a country record on a blues label, who the world's gonna buy that!? But they all cajoled me into it, and now I'm damned glad they did, and proud of 'em for their persistence.
Now, I don't think I have ever kept it a secret that I love country music. I grew up in Asheville, North Carolina in the 50s-early 60s, Grand Ole Opry Central! Watched Flatt and Scruggs in their prime,
Monroe-- watched Jimmy Dean sing "Big John" live!
Southern? Tell me about these Dale Jr.-come-lately merchandise racks they call race fans today. I watched Junior's GRANDFATHER, Ralph, race in the 1950s, on a quarter-mile dirt track, against BANJO MATHEWS--MR.
X, he marked his car!-- the cleanest and hardest driving-- and, well, that makes him the best-- of any driver I ever saw. I watched Richard Petty racing against his father at the half-mile high-banked asphalt tracks that have gone now because stock car racing is no longer just a (mostly) Southern sport, but a mega-billion dollar enterprise.
There was a very lightly grassed hill to the northwest side of the track. It was as good a place as any to stand, or put yer chair down. At one Asheville-Weaverville 500, this grassy hill caught fire. It never really did much, just enough grass on the hill to pass the sparks along.
But we didn't care, anyway. As the high wind rapidly pushed what little smoldering fire there was toward us, we all just stepped over onto the burnt side, out of the smoke! We were stock car racing fans, and weren't going to let a little thing like a grass fire get in the was of enjoying this race, no Sir!
Country? I should smile.
I just heard the blues first. But what I want to share is that I was just listening to one of the tracks that's NOT going to be released YET.
I've got just the rough version of the session; sometimes that's more instructive than listening to the finished and mastered one. I've got a great producer in Nashville, Miles Wilkinson (who makes three great producers I have worked with now, Chris Hardwick and Chris Stovall Brown being the two before). I know I'm going to agree with virtually any engineering or backup decision he makes, because whether I'm getting paid like an A-List player (and I'm not, honest), I'm working with the A-List of industry producers of super-quality music.
I can't go wrong. I have people like Gary Nicholson flowing with my songwriting. He's a terror of a songwriter, watch out, he'll have the whole thing mapped out practically before you sit down to co-write! I have the rythm section from Delbert McClinton's band encouraging me that, yes, I am a competent guitar player. Indeed, I gotta say it, certain parts of making this new record were particular triumphs, and none was more (I think it is probably best that I engage in any self-congratulation on my own blog, :-)) ) than the way I played guitar at this session!
Like I said, I'm listening to this one cut, which is in one way a surprise, which I won't share with you, lol, and in another way will be no surprise to many. I just never had recorded "Dark Genius" yet, but many have heard it over the 20 years since I wrote it. The song just broke out kind of after the recording day was officially over, just as something I improvised over a jam, and we all liked it so much that we took 10 minutes and learned the song (these Nashville Cats are quick studies, whoooiiee, they don't want to hang around the studio /too/ long, they got other paid work to do!) decided how we should handle the segue and ending, and let 'er rip! That'll be me, after being reassured by Miles and all, "don't worry, Slim, you can hit a clean copy of this guitar track!" you hear hitting the whole 8:39 of the "long version"
with flair and no falters. I'm on dobro or slide guitar on every cut.
I'm a guitarist, I think, finally, or at least I think I'm starting to think like one. It's been my longest-maturing axe, no doubt.
And I want to publicly say thank you so much to all these great musicians, thanks also Delbert who was nice enough to let 'em play with me. There is always a real sweet taste from being taken seriously.
I'm procrastinating at the moment. I was supposed to be driving in to Mississippi by today, after a memorable fishing trip in east Tennessee.
Unfortunately, I had one of the orthopedic problems that have become more frequent over the last couple of years, over Memorial Day weekend, and couldn't see a chiropractor, as it turned out, till Wednesday. But my neck was so jammed that I couldn't turn it far enough to see the rear view mirrors, so I had to cancel the trip. Major bummer.
Earlier this year I played three out of four gigs in Australia after my right hip "popped out" on the morning of the second show. If you have heard me talk about semi-retirement from the touring life, this is a big part of why. But I have met that new chiropractor that I was needing. He stretched me and snapped me like a rubber band, such that today I am fully prepared to take that 550 mile trip down to Clarksdale. I will fish a bit there!
Okay, more later. I owe you more, but I hope you'll at least get started with that,
Kirk Out
Back To List
May 21, 2009
Tell slim that casey from okc that we miss him and i will make him some more gumbo when he comes back and will see him at the blues saloon, keep growin your hair out love casey.
Back To List
May 19, 2009
Here's what I've been doing lately; this blog entry is most especially for my brothers and sisters in VVAW and IVAW. I will write in more detail about the last southern tour, the BMAs, the Pow-Wow, etc. real soon. But here's at least a lick and a promise.
My old musical colleague Chris Stovall Brown has ably stepped in after Workers founding member Michael Newberry opted to try other musical projects. We all wish Michael the best in what he's doing. I know many of you out there miss Mike a lot. Helluva drummer, who also did a fine job as road manager over the last 4 1/2 years with the Workers.
I'm off tour for almost a month now, gonna do some fishing and painting; California journalist Michael Kinsman has begun working through the archives I supplied him, and we have begun work on my biography. Mike and the other Mike-- our publicist Michael McClune-- went to Como, Mississippi with me for the unveiling of the Blues Trail Marker for Mississippi Fred McDowell, and afterwards, we went to Fred's grave, in a tiny cemetery in Como, where I stood on the grave and sang Fred "Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning," a song I learned from him decades ago. I've been waiting to make that pilgrimage for almost 37 years, since Fred died, in 1972. I was a little saddened to see that of all the several hundred people at the unveiling, only me and my two friends went to the cemetery to pay our respects.
Hey Stigs, send me an email address, or a phone number, Hokay?
There ya go, Blues fans, veterans, et cetera, we'll get back to y'all soon,
God Bless You All,
Watermelon Slim
*************************************************
*Right on, Billy X! *
** *I just got back from the Tunica-Biloxi Pow-Wow down in Marksville, Louisiana, the last stop of a tour through Tennessee (did not win any BMAs, Buddy Guy won most of my four nominated categories) Mississippi (Pinetop Perkins, Muddy Waters' 95-year-old former piano player, jammed with us at Ground Zero in Clarksdale) and Louisiana, where I danced the Gourd Dance with many Vietnam and other-era (mostly Vietnam) N. A, brothers. At the gig (we played 3 nights) I blew "Taps" for our fallen brother (Major) Steven Hutchinson, who as y'all may know met his fate in an IED blast, at 60 years old in Iraq while there training Iraqis. He went back in the Army 38 years after 2 combat tours (68-69) in Nam after his wife passed. We all make our life decisions. Our Indian brothers send their greetings to us in VVAW. Aho!*
** *Before that, I was in Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Holland (turned the Big Six-Oh in France April 25, nobody's getting any younger, siigghh, /je m'ai amuse' bien en parler beaucoup de francais partout la-bas/), and was proud to represent VVAW in these places that, unlike our own country, know war personally. Ditto in Australia, where I was playing back in the first part of April.*
** *I might have an adjunct professorship at U.-Central Oklahoma next winter in their new School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, plus maybe an English and a History course. I'm trying to semi-retire from touring so I can paint and write more, but I'm just having too much fun playing, and it's hard to slow down, though my health is slowing me down a little whether I want to or not. If I get the job, I will do my best to sneak a little counter-recruiting into my curriculum, wink, lol! Educators teaching educators to oppose war-- good karma, that. If I haven't mentioned it here, I have a new CD coming out in August or so, titled /Escape From the Chicken Coop/. Truckdriving music; Country-and-Western on a blues label (!?!) Watch for it! The world is my oyster. I am a blessed fellow through all the years, good and bad.*
** *I look forward to seeing you all at Kent State next May 4, I'm setting the date aside. And hopefully on Vet's Day somewhere. Annie Bailey and I will be working on that. Gawd I love that girl... I'd like to make the NSCM this year, but don't know if I will be in the US on that date, mighr be in Svalbard (900 miles from the North Pole! look it up, Brrr...).*
** *Well, I thought I'd keep y'all up to date on my globe-trotting. God bless all of you that are doing such great work,*
** *Solidarity,*
** *Bill Homans*
*Lifetime Member and*
*Oklahoma contact, VVAW*
** *P.S.: Almost immediately after writing the below letter, a knock came on my door, and when I answered it, I saw the UPS truck driving away. On my porch I found my new issues of the latest The Veteran. Just gets better and better. Right on to Joe Miller and all the Collective! I see we are more and more active nationwide in counter-recruiting, demonstrations, and all, and the reminiscences from Paul Wisovaty, Rick Thorngate, Chris Arendt, and Iraq medic Duane Linton, among so many others, touch the soul, and show once again how we are all connected in our mission. The mission is for life, y'all. Drive On!*
** *Solidarity,*
** *Bill Homans*
*VVAW/OK*
**
**
**
**
* *
*
*
Back To List
May 16, 2009
It was great to see you and the Workers at Ground Zero in Memphis last week, then closing out the BMA Thursday night! You were well worth waiting for! I remember the first time we saw you at Brackins in Maryville, you are such a treasure. Take good care of yourself, we will look forward to seeing you next time you are in Tennessee, either Maryville or Memphis. Though we did have fun traveling up to see you in Cincinnati last August! That was another great show, thanks!
Your friends,
Lynn and Gerard
Back To List
May 11, 2009
*Hey! William! *
** *Miss you and the boys here in Colorado. Dennis and I need to let loose, so quit sharing yourself*
*with the world and come back to Colorado. Need I mention that I turned the big 60 in*
*January? Ha! Ha! I'm older than you are! BIG BELATED BIRTHDAY HUGS, BABY BOY!!! *
** *Laurel *
Back To List
May 2, 2009
Hey Slim- ole buddy Stigs here. We would sure love to see you back here in the Ozarks. The Blues Society has a big event going on in June still needing a headliner. You do perfect. Know this, ANYTIME you're as much as just passing thru we can always hook you and the gang up with some lodging and good ole Southern chow. Call me anytime at 480-***-****.
And Happy Birthday, Big Boy. Hope to see you soon
*Blessed Be *
Back To List
May 1, 2009
Hey:
Happy Birthday
Can't wait to see you at the Ribberfest in Madison Indiana, I'll bring you some of that fine whiskey you love.
Your friend,
Tammy Reams
Back To List
April 29, 2009
We look forward to seeing Watermelon Slim back in UK sometime!
Good wishes,
James Mather
Back To List
April 29, 2009
Hi !
I just got back home after the Brussels concert. I really can't thank you enough for the good time i spent there listening and watching the show. I don't really want to tell my life here but i'm having some bad bad life mishappenings for the moment so I dont quite see the reason for still being there tomorrow. i won t go to the point Slim and the workers saved a man's life tonight but they certainly gave me a reason to go on and fight back. I am a blues musician myself and Slim reminded me of the healing process of that music. and by next time I will play these guys will be on my mind so I can try to honour them in the way they honoured the blues and the "classical" blues musicians tonight.
I just digged every number but the rendering of "Mannish boy" sure would have made both willie Dixon and Muddy Waters proud of this version :
never in my life have I heard such a powerful and truthful version (except of the guys themselves !)
Many many thanks again guys !
Alain Van Brussel
ps : a technical question : what is the marque of Slim's guitar ? what kind of amp do'es he use to get that immense sound ?
Back To List
April 28, 2009
Can't wait to see you play May 8th. I saw you play on the porch at Ground Zero in 07 while filming your DVD.
Dawn
Back To List
April 27, 2009
Blog Entry April 27
I have been to Scandinavia, Australia and the European continent in the last two months. All of you in the eight countries me and the Workers have visited-- Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and The Netherlands, in that order-- we want to let you know that we will never forget the grace and love we have felt at each and every appearance, from all the promoters, drivers-- Birgit and Jorn in particular-- staff, volunteers, backline and sound people, club workers, Blues Society officers, fellow artists, and above all, you, the fans, the stars of the show. It's been a great spring, and we have four more gigs here in Europe before we come back to Memphis, Mississippi and Louisiana. We're cel!ebrating at the Blues Awards next month, hope to see y'all around there!
I'm writing from Antwerp, Belgium. It's a mostly brisk but envigorating spring here in northwestern Europe, and the food and wine have been nothing short of spectacular. I believe I'm up 3 or 4 pounds on this trip. Oh, BTW: The Byron Bay Festival's food was spectacular all five days we were there, and I shall not say that it was surpassed by that of France and the Netherlands, although everyone knows how I love French-style. The Basel Festival, in Switzerland, as you might have expected, provided a lovely extra touch: they made a run of exquisite chocolates as a promotional aid for the Festival, which I sent a number of to my daughter!
Today we pulled in to the hotel in Antwerp, and after checking in we started to take a little reconnoiter. We went by this one place that said "Theisen Music" over the door, and thought we'd found a music store to putter around in, but then I noticed that although the place was open, there were no instruments for sale that I could see, only a man sitting at a desk with a computer, and a couple of other office people. Suddenly it hit me: this fellow is a BOOKING AGENT! And so Cliff and I went in, I asked him, and sure enough, that is just what he was! He knows Rick Booth at Intrepid, they have worked on gigs together. We may have one of his festivals next year. Funny how things line up!
I appreciate everyone who has taken my advice to write to me at my email address, and here, on my blog, is even better.
A few big shoutouts:
A. To Jason Ricci, for the song "Holler from Craig Lawler" on his new record /Done With The Devil/.
B. To Betsie Brown, for the work she's done, paid and unpaid, as a supporter and friend of the Workers.
C. To Rob Newberry and all others who are beginning to play our music.
We've met you from New Zealand to Canada to Europe and back to Australia. Y'all have fun with those songs now!
D. Fred Litwin.
E. Howard Zinn.
F. Barbara Dane, and her son Jessie Cahn.
G.G is for Golly, I could go on forever.
I will continue this when I get back from this tour, if I don't boorow a puter from my band again over here. They're such puter geeks!
Thank you. Denk je weel. Merci mille fois. In any language, the most important words in the universe!
God Bless You, Blues fans,
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
April 27, 2009
Bill,
We wish you a happy birthday. We hope you�ve had a wonderful day yesterday and that the Dutch public was also very enthusiastic. We�ve enjoyed your concert in Hasselt last Thursday. Especially your last song was very emotional, also for yourself. Take care of yourself!
Eug�ne en Rosette Swaab-Noelanders
B-3720 Kortessem
Back To List
April 25, 2009
Slim,
Happy Birthday from Eagle River, Alaska! I enjoy your music. Y'all come see us and play in the 49th state!
Bobby Jefts
Back To List
April 25, 2009
Bill,
I remember your 50th birthday at Stonewall in Stillwater, OK. My how things have changed! You've come a long way buddy...... Here's to you enjoying another glorious decade of that infamously quirky life that you lead. We'll have to get together and jam again before you turn 70, OK? See you and the guys in Memphis in a couple of weeks. Keep on doin' what you do best. God bless and take good care.
Your friend always,
Texas Ray
Back To List
April 25, 2009
wishing you a very happy birthday today slim. don't let anybody jab you about being sixty. the years and the experiences they have brought teach us patience, tolerance, good judgement, thrift, make us able to laugh at our selves, and roll with every punch. by our age we are a true wealth of every thing a person needs most in life.how many times have your heard it said " wish i knew then what i know now"? enjoy your day and may god bless you .
patti dohm
Back To List
April 24, 2009
Happy birthday you Old Dog ! All the best from an old tubthumper ....looking forward to seeing you guys at some point ...!....Until then ,Be well..and take care ,,,
we'll leave a light on for ya !
Back To List
April 24, 2009
Hallo Watermelon Slim,
I wish you a Happy Birthday and many happy returns and many years of wonderful blues music! Thank you sooo much for the wonderful concert last night in Hasselt!! I saw you in Peer too Last Summer.
Take care,
Dominica
Hasselt, Belgium!
Back To List
April 24, 2009
Boozhoo Watermelon,
We just wanted to send a birthday wish for a good day and as they say in the South �I�m just fine as long as I�m still casting a shadow. Happy Birthday from the Shananaquets in Michigan ?The Great Lakes State.
Punkin & Dave
Back To List
April 24, 2009
Yo Slim... Happy Birthday! As they say, "You've come a long way, Baby!"
Oh, and just to continue with another clich�d phrase...but one that is also rather fitting, "Keep on Truckin'!"
Best,
"Hardluck" Jim
Back To List
April 23, 2009
Slim,
It is my great honor to wish you a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
I can't wait to see you and the workers. The rest of the Dohm's and myself are dying to see you guys. Can't for you to hit the states and the midwest.
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
April 20, 2009
*Hello Slim,
Hoping you're having a good spring and enjoying your gigs across the pond in the UK and other places you've been playing for quite a few months. I do have to say tho I'm having some awful bad Watermelon withdrawals at the moment. I seen you "live" last September for the first time in Iowa, and I'm really really hoping you'll be coming back thru the midwest this summer or fall to play again?? I keep hopping onto your play dates and checking them out on your website and so far have seen nothing posted about a swing thru the midwest? I live in Western Wisconsin along the mississippi river, but would drive a bit to see you if it was in the roundabout area. I have a few people I want to bring along for the Watermelon experience as well. So do you think you'll be along this way again Slim, before the snow flies again? Anxiously awaiting the release of your latest album as well.
Take care and keep on makin us smile Slim.
Love from Wisconsin,
Jenny*
Back To List
April 9, 2009
Best wishes for your tour downunder and please come back to do a tour down here in Sydney. Also congrats on the award and hope to hear of good news come May.
Cheers
Colin
Back To List
April 5, 2009
I just heard you for the first time, you were featured on one of the Lefty Blogs doing "Smokestack Lightening". Do you ever come back to Boston/Middlebury? I was in the Marines in Nam 66-67 and came back to tramp the streets with the VVAW.
You have an outstanding sound.
Good Luck in Australia.
Jack Kelley
Gilman,VT
Back To List
March 29, 2009
Dear Roger,
Yes, I knew he had passed. I met him only once, and he was both charming and feisty. Woulda liked to have known more. My condolences to the blues lovers in Canada, a special place for me. I don't know what Rick the agent has plabbed as far as Canada this year. I am probably going to play in Ontario at some point, and probably do more than one gig (no, definitely, lol), but I don't know if the appearances will be band or solo. Right now, the only Canadian gig I have booked is in Winnipeg, but I'm sure there will be others. We just finished an all-too-short tour in Denmark and Norway, what a lovefest. I would emigrate to either in a heartbeat. It gets really cold in Norway though, of course. Maybe I'd start with Denmark, sometimes known as the happiest country in the world. In fact, I want to take this opportunity to thank the people of Denmark and Norway for their amazing warm and gracious hospitality. On behalf of the Workers, a big velige takk! We'll see y'all in Skanavic in July, and hope to return again to both lands in the fall.
Hey blues fans, did you watch the Russian President Dmitri Medvedev interviewed tonight on BBC? One might readily make the comparison between the relationships of Dick Cheney to George Bush, and Vladimir Putin to Medvedev, considering all the talk about how the Russian Parliament recent extendion of the term of the President to six years looks like preparation for the return of Putin to the presidency.
I, however, find him to be liable to be a much better informed, and probably (given that there was an interpreter, and the answers appeared to have been scripted, at least partly, for the translator, which leads to the conclusion that this was not a fully live interview), a more principled fellow than George Bush, whose abiding principle was political expediency. Medvedev is a lawyer and businessman by background before entering government, where he has spent the past nine years. If something were to happen to Putin, I have the idea that Medvedev would command more respect than Goerge W. Bush would have if Dick Cheney had died or become incapacitated.
However, I also notice that the man is someone who suppresses his humor. His laugh, at the few times he allowed himself to evince humor, was quickly restrained, choked off. Combined with the swaggering body language he displayed on the occasion of his first speech to the Russian Parliament after his election, I feel a certain personal insecurity about the man. If it is indeed Putin running Medvedev (though Medvedev denied that that was so in what I found to be a very direct, even blunt, set of questions by the BBC interviewer; the fact that a Russian head of state will even sit and publicly answer questions like these must be seen by Westerners as a hopeful sign of progress in human relations!), it would certainly not be inappropriate for him to feel insecure.
We're off to play in Basel, Switzerland day after tomorrow (our second time in Switzerland, having played Bellinzona in '07), then home to do laundry before hooking it for Australia. God bless Mel, and God bless us all, every one. It's great to share with y'all,
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
March 29, 2009
I'm hoping that you and The Workers are coming back to the Toronto area of Canada real soon!!
You probably already know this but I'm writting with a heavy heart. We lost a blues legend this past week Mel Brown, an old golfing buddy passed on March 23/09.
I hope all is well with you and the band!!!
Roger L. Percival
Back To List
March 27, 2009
"Gidday" Slim,
Please excuse the Aussie slang, Ian and Susan would like to wish you all the best at the Byron Bay blues Festival at Easter. We hope that the Aussie audience truly appreciates your performance. Regrettably we cannot make it this year...we are certainly looking forward to our first concert some time in the near future ! , wherever that may be. Just "knock their socks off" mate !!
Avid "oldie" fans Noosa AUS. Susan & Ian.
Back To List
March 1, 2009
Hey Slim-
Congrats on the nominations - it's your time, brother.
Albert Hofmann sends his best...
Daniel
Back To List
March 1, 2009
My nane is susie,I meet you in parkersburg at halloween,I was with stuart.Would love to see you come back around ohio way! Have a great day!
Back To List
February 20, 2009
Well, Blues Fans,
The historic gig I was going to do next month with Pinetop Perkins and company has been cancelled by the promoter, no explanation given. Am I pissed and disappointed? Youbetcha! I was sure looking forward to getting back to England, and now I don't know when that will happen. What a freakin DRAG... Long live Pinetop, Willie Big Eyes, Bob Margolin and Bob Stroger. I hope I get the chance to hook up with them again sometime (siiiiggh...) I'm looking forward to seeing all our fans in Denmark, Switzerland, Australia and other places this spring. I don't have much news for you right now. Like most of you, I am observing the economic and political process going on during the beginning days of the Obama administration. Can he save Main Street AND save capitalism? I guess we're gonna see. I don't think any of us would bitch for a moment about the Obama Stimulus if we hadn't already had to watch the Paulson Bailout during the previous (GW Bush) administration!
Thank you once again to everybody that has supported what me and the Workers have been doing for the last going on 5 years,
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
January 23, 2009
hello slim...you are missed up here in frigid canada...we all enjoyed your new cd and i have reflected on your newiest blog re bush's last day in office etc..we also hope for the best with the new president.....and we hope for the best for you to bill....i trust you will continue to play , view the sunny side of life ,make a better effort to take care of your health and never lose sight of the fact you bring joy and insight to those that appreciate your gift...
bill morkin
Back To List
January 23, 2009
*/Chatting about the inauguration, I came to understand that Yo-yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and somebody I can't remember-- these are A-list musicians-- recorded their piece beforehand, because it was impossible to keep the A-listers' extremely expensive, sensitive instruments in tune at the temperature. Helluva feat./*
*//*
*/Coldest outdoor gig I ever did was in Providence, R.I. for the Veterans' Day parade, 1990 or so. It was in the mid 20s with a 15-20 MPH wind. Windchill was down in the teens.
Luckily, we didn't have any instruments of the sensitivity of Yo-yo Ma's cello. This was the Cambridge Harmonica Orchestra, a long-running loose confederation of harmonica players of all descriptions, from Harmonicats to Big Walter and beyond, plus melodicas, sometimes an accordion, usually a washtub bass and a little trap set. Imagine 40 absolutely freezing individuals standing huddled on a 32-foot flatbed being towed for a full hour through the streets of Providence, doing our best to play various happy harp standards. The crowd turnout was not exactly sparse, but you could see gaps between watchers that would not have been there if the temp had just been, say, 40. My fingers were, indeed, numb. I was only glad that one does not have to fret a harmonica!
Second place goes to Telluride, Colorado in 2006. It was in the 40s on September 13 the day we played the fest. We also had two club dates in town, and by the time we headed for the sky-high mountain passes between Telluride and New Mexico, the temperature was 24 the morning of the 16th, and it was snowing! Brrr...
As I have always told fans and students, "there's one word I have for you: practice, practice, practice, practice, practice!" Had I been a more focused MUSICIAN when I was very much younger, I might not be turning 60 this year after a B-list (I know what the A-list is-- Dr. John. Robert Cray. B.B. King. Koko Taylor-- and I refuse to flatter myself. I'm in like, Triple-A ball)career of 5 years or so. But I too am amazed that these great musicians could synchronize their movements so precisely to the music at 30 with wind. THAT's practice.
I am a thin-blooded Southern Man, never mind my Yankee forebears. Bleep a bunch of cold weather! I tolerate it, but that is absolutely all.
Watermelon Slim,
reminiscing in Oklahoma City/*
Back To List
January 20, 2009
I have heard several people, both before the election and during Barack Obama's time as president-elect, including one only yesterday-- -George W. Bush's LAST FULL DAY ON THE JOB-- YAAAAAAYYY!!!-- hope that Obama would not get assassinated. I thought I would remind us of one of the festering real threats to a partially black president.
It is a time of death and rebirth for me. Yesterday I officiated at the funeral of my oldest friend in Oklahoma, down in Pushmataha County. 28 years ago, I put to sleep and buried James R. Farrell's aged German Shepherd. 12 years later I officiated at Jimmy's mother Lucille's funeral. Yesterday I buried Jimmy, the youngest of whose three kids was not yet born when I moved to Oklahoma.
Specialist 4th Class Jimmy Farrell was a counterintelligence specialist with the First Cavalry Division in Viet Nam in 1971. He received the Combat Infantry Badge, Purple Heart, and Army Commendation Medal. He was a backwoods fellow who loved his country, and his family. However, he was also a stone dissenter in the tradition of the Oklahoma hill country, who didn't trust his government as far as he could throw a pickup truck. When I lived in back-country Oklahoma, Jimmy and I were part of an informal group of families we vets, and our wives, called "Clear Sky Lightning". We all pledged to each other that in the event of the fascism we agreed was a possibility in this country, we would band together and fight for our families, and for America.
The local cemetery would not permit a funeral with full military honors. But I was honored to play Taps as part of a 9-member color guard, once the funeral party had returned to the tiny piece of farmland the Farrells own in Snow, Oklahoma, eight miles north of Finley, where Jimmy was laid to rest.
The commander gave Present Arms, and the seven member firing squad shot four rounds as I played the strains. Then, Matthias Farrell, a big, angry boy when last I had seen him, and a man now, sure enough, 10 years later, fired one last round for his father. All the squad used weapons from Jimmy Farrell's gun rack. After Order Arms, most of us fired at least a round or two from Jimmy's guns-- mojo, you know. He was well-loved by most, and well-respected by all.
And now, after the loss of my friend, I am blessed to see what MUST be a day of rebirth-- or at least a chance at it-- in this country. It is too bad Jimmy didn't get to see it. I thought it a good and appropriate time to remind everybody that this country remains full of-- or at least contains a residue of-- two-legged snakes, and one nest of them is right down here in Oklahoma.
On this his Inauguration day, may God keep Barack Obama, and all of us, safe from the twisted plans of racist ideologues and other stains upon the American social fabric. Amen.
**********************************************************************
FIRST POSTED IN 2006
In Adair County, Oklahoma, very close to the Arkansas line, there is a white-supremacist compound called Elohim City. The inhabitants have a trucking company that supports them. They are armed to the teeth with heavy weapons and explosives. Andreas Strassmeir, their head of security at the time of the Murrah bombing, was (or is) their link to the international neo-Nazi movement. The inhabitants of Elohim City also included (at the time of the terrorist attack on Oklahoma City) Dennis Mahon, former Grand Dragon of the KKK in Oklahoma and an operative of White Aryan Resistance (WAR).
These neo-Nazis, still running free, have sworn violent opposition to the government of the United States. They helped Tim McVeigh plan, if not execute, the bombing. Judge Matsch suppressed the evidence given by BATF/FBI informer Carol Howe at the trial of Timothy McVeigh. The judge in Bernie Nichols's trial did the same.
This nation is immune to threats from the Left. We the People have been conditioned by the history of the 20th century to summarily reject all Leftist calls for revolution. It is the Right that will make any effective wholesale change in the American way of government, and they will not stop at violence to do it.
My masters' thesis (Oklahoma State, History, 2000) culminates with an analysis of suppressed and unfollowed leads in the case of the Murrah Building bombing. I was able to obtain unclassified internal memos from the FBI and BATF which show that in March of 1995, a frontal assault against Elohim City was planned, but then scrubbed just in time for the bombing. Had the agencies gone ahead with that assault, they would undoubtedly have sustained significant casualties. However, each and every dead or wounded agent would be permanently enshrined in the pantheon of American heroes, and 168 more people would be alive today, and there would not be a festering neo-Nazi sore sitting in Oklahoma waiting to erupt. Instead, the agencies acted with cowardice, and the bomb went off.
William P. Homans, M.A.
A second-generation
Nazi-fighter, and
Unterrorized American,
VVAW contact, Oklahoma
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
- Thomas Jefferson
Back To List
January 18, 2009
Dear Blues Fans,
It is very gratifying to be playing for people who THINK. Blues fans (y'all) THINK. This is the substance of what I have posted about the excesses of Pee Diddy, David Lee Roth, and other musical icons' conspicuous consumption and tossing of money around. Happy New Year, y'all, I know I will see many of you on the gig trail this year. God bless us all, every one, every day!
Thanks and a big shout out to everyone who came to the GREAT shows in Stillwater, Oklahoma City and Norman. And a special howdy to Cedric Burnside and Lightning Malcolm, who tore up VZD's last Sunday night. Everyone there had a real monstrous treat These two guys are on top of their game, everyone needs to catch 'em wherever they show up!!
And another special congratulations to Intrepid Artists, Northernblues Music, Chris Wick, Michael McClune, Jesse Wells (our webmaster) and Miles Wilkinson and everyone who helped on the CD named above, that y'all haven't heard yet, down in Nashville! Thanks also to Roger Nabors and all his staff on the Legendary Blues Cruises! I'm looking forward one day to go on another monstrous big boat!
Thank You! Thank You! Thank you all!
Release of the new CD, /Escape From The Chicken Coop/, will be delayed until this summer, as will the DVD from Ground Zero. Sorry about that, folks, everybody's got liquidity problems in this economic downturn. But good things DO, and WILL, come to them that wait.
Love And Peace,
Slim
************************************************
87. bill h - Thu Jan 15, 2009 7:50pm PST
I am Watermelon Slim, and me and my band the Workers won the Awards for Best Band and Best Album at the 2008 Blues Music Awards in Tunica, Mississippi. I was nominated for 6 awards for 2008, 6 for 2007, and 1 for 2006. For 2009 I am nominated for 4 more, making a total of 17 nominations in 4 years. And that's just the top American awards. I was BB King International Entertainer at the Maple Awards in Toronto last year, and I have won the award for best blues album from Mojo Magazine, England's leading blues publication, for the past 2 years. Nobody in my genre has ever had anything approaching that number, not BB King, not John Lee Hooker, not Robert Cray, not ANYBODY. I think all that makes me a celebrity, whether you've ever heard of me before or not.
But I drive a 2000 Ford E-250 van with 299,000 miles on it. It runs perfect, why spend five figures for a new one? I shall never buy a plane, or rent one, though last year I flew over 40,000 miles to gigs around the world.
I own no gold anythings (I have a few nice pieces of silver and turquoise, Apache and Navajo). My house rent is $450 a month plus utilities, and I am warm and comfy tonight despite temperature in the teens here in Oklahoma City.
I eat anything I want to, and sometimes cook (Southern home cooking) for others, but I never spend as much as $25 on a meal out. I am smoking a Cuban cigar as I write, but I get them for less than $3 per stick in Canada. I buy four or five fifths of top-shelf cognac or single-malt per year. I drink less and enjoy it a helluva lot more. I have a moonshiner, but I very rarely indulge in his product.
I have one girlfriend; my philosophy on women is, the more women, the more baggage. I smoke BC bud or comparable when it's available, but good Mex or homegrown does me fine.
I deplore conspicuous consumption. Michael Jackson, Puff Daddy (or Pee Diddy or whatever he calls himself), MickandKeith etc., all of 'em, they can kiss my heinie.
Patricia, and others,
What truly off-the-charts consumption does is distort the entire economy. Of course, the root of the problem is that everybody charges what they think the market will bear. Music is by no means the only entertainment in which the performers receive more money than they could spend in two lifetimes. Pro sports is far worse. Tiger Woods is closing in on being a BILLIONNAIRE, when all his endorsements etc. are figured in. There are .250 hitters, and pitchers with .500 career records, or worse, making 3, 5, 7 million a year. Basketball players averaging less than 10 points a game making the same. And the reason these mediocre professional athletes get so much is because the people who pay them are soaking the public for ever greater admissions and concessions prices, and playing off city versus city for the privelege of having a pro team. The fans-- whether they be music fans, or pro sports fans-- caught up in the adulation of their idols, don't count the cost of entertainment inflation to society as a whole. They don't give a [profane] what a stadium-- or a front-row seat at the gig-- costs, as long as they've got it in their city, and the rival city, in the next state, doesn't. Even the economic downturn doesn't slow the inflation.
I'm just a recording artist, not a professor. But everybody ought to start thinking a little more, thinking past the mere grooviness of their icons, and think more about the big picture. What we pay for what we DIG, what we WANT, inflates the price of all those things we actually NEED.
1087. bill h - 16 minutes ago
Thank you, bev, for thinking.
You know, one poster made a very good point: Americans are obsessive about celebrities. That's plain to see, when you go to your local newsstand and you see the National Enquirer/World Weekly/Star/People Mag/Us Mag/etc. And (for those who have never traveled internationally) England, France, Australia, Turkey, Russia, and other places I have been show the same phenomenon (adjusting, of course, for language). Especially England, hose publications I can read best, lol (I speak French and Spanish too).
I suppose much of it is just jealousy. Many, many of the posts on this queue begin with, or include, "well, if I had all that money, I would..." and so many of those posters conclude that they would totally blow it in ways A., B., C., and etc. To their credit, some people don't think that way. One poster, for instance, suggests that all the entertainment excess ought to be given to veterans and their families (I would clarify: their survivors). I'm a Vietnam veteran, and I think that is an excellent idea.
How? Well, Pee Diddly and whoever will have to take that initiative. Or, I suppose, pro sports, Hollywood, Arena-rock, etc. could set a salary cap above which these outrageous bunches of money could be placed in a fund to be directly used for, say, treatment of PTSD in those returning from our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or for the rehabilitation of the Gulf Coast, which is still f\/( Ked up!
Will Mr. Obama preside over a reform of how American taxes are used to help AMERICANS? Nous verrons d'apres trois journees (3 days to go before he becomes the "one president at a time" YAY!). Till then, I suppose most of us (talkin bout the posters here) will continue to stew in their jealousy of some talented but very self-centered people.
Back To List
January 7, 2009
HI Slim, Michael, Cliff, Ronnie, and the GANG, From Harrison Hot Springs, B.C. Happy New Year!! 09
Miss ya's. Rusty Kendall, Alissa.CHEERS!!!
Back To List
January 2, 2009
Hi Watermelon
I caught you in the summer of 2008 at the Cincinnati Blues Festival. I'd never heard of you before and the open-air environment made it a bit difficult to go with the music, but I got up close to the stage and realized something unusual was going on. I bought two of your CDs - Watermelon Slim and the Workers and No Paid Holidays - and just let them run in the background while I was concentrating on other things. And then one day it hit me: Frisco Line - I was overwhelmed. I've probably played it a hundred times since then - no, the ITunes app says only 61, that's about once every two days, which isn't bad. That brought me to focus on your other songs - Dumpster Blues, Check Writing Woman, Mack Truck, Folding Money Blues, Call My Job - I'd better stop before i name almost all the pieces on the two CDs. Whenever anyone visits me I play Frisco Line for them and just let things run on. Since I live in Germany (Berlin) I have to explain to my German friends what a dumpster is, what lies behind the names in Folding Money Blues, what "riding shotgun" and "with a monkey on my back" mean and how you're the only blues singer I know of who can sing about an ashtray and the clock on the wall. But as you say "when you've got the spirit you don't have to worry about the words." I've made several fans for you here and I'm only sad that I'm in the US for a few weeks every year and can't see you live. I love your work songs and your integration of work, blues and sexuality (Mack Truck is great). I wanted to buy The Wheel Man and went to the largest CD store I know of here - it has a very large jazz collection and a special blues section - but they'd never heard of you. I hope you'll get out into the world and that you'll be around for a long time.
Peter Germain
petergermain@mac.com
Back To List
December 23, 2008
www.wshafm.org Fri 8 to midnight & Sun 4 to 8pm. Tune in. Slim is one of the first artist that I remember including on my regular play list. Hard Times was the first W.S. tunes I played. I just wanted you to know that I love his music. When I met him at the Bull Durham blues fest here in Durham, I told him that I played his music all the time...He grabbed me and gave me a hug! That was so funny & so cool. I just can't get Archtypal Blues out of my head! It's one of those tunes that I just keep playing over & over in my head! Keep it coming! (we have Blue Freight Liner & the Latest, no Holidays? The Wheel Man & the Watermelon Slim & the Workers CD got lifted)
Back To List
December 23, 2008
hi workers i have wished slim a merry christmas but not the three of you yet and i would like to do this now. we wish for you and your familys the merriest christmas and a happy health new year. thanks for all the wonderful music, you have given us your best and we wish the best for you. see you very soon again your faithful fans and friends the dohms merry christmas !
Back To List
December 20, 2008
Howdy, Blues Fans,
Y'all have been writing to the blog and connecting with me in other ways ever since I got back from Turkey, and I thought I would just give you a lick and a promise, pass on a short dialogue me and my brother from Vietnam Ed Owen were having. Ed definitively corrected my claim that I was the only Vietnam vet to have recorded a full-length LP album while the war was going on. In fact, there were at least two other albums recorded by Nam vets during wartime:
the first is undoubtedly familiar to some readers (and I would have acknowledged it, except that I thought "The Ballad of the Green Beret" was only a single). Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler's Ballad of the Green Beret was an LP from which the once-off hit was taken. However, much more interesting was Ed's information that Archie Bell, of Archie Bell and the Drells, had fought and received the Purple Heart in Vietnam. Ed was unsure whether the Drells' big hits, "The Tighten Up" and "I Just Can't Stop Dancing", and the LP they appeared on, were released prior to or after Archie Bell's meritorious service.
So there's still less than a handful, but I am not, as I had thought for decades, the only one who released an LP after his service but during wartime. Vietnam vets have been relatively silent, though, in general. I remember the atmosphere of the "Freedom Bird", the jet I came home on. Cigarette smoke and silence. It appears to have been a metaphor for the years after, and for the lives and hopes of all too many Vietnam vets over those many years.
So here's one fan's input, and I will try to write a lot more during my relaxing time. I have no excuse not to git AFTER it, ya know?? Thank you everybody that has come out and supported our shows from here to Australia and back, and Merry Christmas/Happy Hannukah to all!
Yup, Ed,
Back safe and sound and relaxing in deep reduction gear, lol! There were no terrorist incidents while I was there, but soon after I returned there was a story on Turkish police repression in Kurdish land in the east. I know my analysis was correct, that there is a low-intensity war going on there, but I did enjoy the company of the people I was working with/for, and I got a new hobby-- carving meerschaum! I have been back in the US for a week now, and have played my last three gigs for the year-- thank you, Johnny Chan, in Woonsocket, the Bodle's Opera House crowd and staff in Chester, NY, and my oldest adult friend, Michael Moran, at Amazing Things Art Centre in Framingham, for three great gigs, two of them with Stovall Brown (about whom you may hear a lot more here very soon), and in Framingham, with my long-time musical partner and the mother of our child, Honour Havoc! I will not play another gig until March 13, in London.
BB King is an institution. Almost anybody who has played music in America since 1950 has incorporated his music. Am I a big fan? Well, I never buy records, but How can you not love a guy whose career spans more than 60 years-- BB first recorded 2 years before I was born-- and is still gigging harder than I intend to from here on? That said, in general I prefer bluesmen/women for whom the instrumental and vocal parts are integral. BB (and as I now understand, Albert) King has always sung then played, sung then played. It's an antiphonal thing. It is so seamless that I never even noticed it till my band guitarist Ronnie Mac, a man 24 years my junior, pointed it out to me.
Me and Kilborn Alley have hung out, youbetcha, down in Memphis and Mississippi. Good players, right attitude.
Snowing like hell here in midwestern Massachusetts, where I'm writing you from. 5-6 inches on the ground starting last night, a foot predicted, dunno if it will make that, but it's good looking semi-dry snow that will probably have to sit for a day before becoming good snowman material.
Merry Christmas to you and yours, Ed,
Bill Homans
VVAW Musician-in-residence, lol
Back To List
December 13, 2008
Hey "boozhoo" Watermelon Slim ?This is Punkin from Michigan and just wanted to let you know we are thinking of you and the Workers this holiday season.
I am assuming you are now stateside and not running around the Earth Ball as much as you have these past few months. I truly hope your trip/music tour was a success and that you have many new fans in Turkey and Russia. I was planning on sending on a CD to your personal address, just a nice little cd from a local bluegrass band �Who Hit John? A little Christmas package from the FANS in the Great Lakes, soooo if you can send that it would be great and if I don't hear from you I'll forward to your contact address on your website.
I read your blog dated November 16, 2008 and what a surprise to see the Shananaquets mentioned from you personally, wow what an honor to be a part of your blues family; we feel the same about you all, your music and your right on messages about the state of the world. Well just hope your making the gas money you need, food is in the belly and the personal joys of friends, music and like mindedness of the season is in your hearts.
Let me know when the C & W album is out, can't wait to catch your new tunes...Happy Solstice and let everyone know you are in our hearts as we celebrate another year of life. I'll keep watching the calendar to see when you are in our area...remember the Blizzard of 08 at Billy's in Grand Rapids last February, awesome show and wonderful memories. Catch up with you guy's soon and hope it's not later.
Punkin Shananaquet
Back To List
December 12, 2008
Hi Slim!!
It was great to see you tonight at Chan's! The show was wonderful - raw - down to earth - from the heart! Also, thanks again for giving me the pick. I appreciate the fact you gave away one of your good ones and also that you signed it for me! Very sweet of you.
Hope to see you again soon. Happy and safe travels to you and happy holidays!!!
Sandie
Back To List
November 16, 2008
Meerhaba (hello), Blues Fans,
Here I am in Turkey, working at one of two computers that work out of five, which are arranged in a pentagon. I have always maintained that computers are the work of the devil, and the positioning of these puters seems to bear me out!
I didn't want to come here in the first place. I hadn't given it much thought when the tour was first mentioned to me more than 8 months ago. But after returning from the West Coast Legendary Blues Cruise, thank you Roger Nabors and all the staff that made this one of the most truly memorable tour stops of my whole musical career, I read the paper and found that there had been civil unrest in Turkey in the week that my dear Ann Bailey had been relaxing on the MS Ryndam, in places where I was supposed to be appearing. A Kurdish female suicide bomber had been caught in Istanbul before blowing herself up-- she was going to divide her 20 ponds of explosives into 3rds, detonate the first two by remote control, and then finish the job with her own death. The week before, there were two dozen dead and wounded in Diyarbakir, one of the hotbeds of Kurdish unrest down in the southeast part of Turkey, where we were also scheduled to play.
Diyarbakir is a very poor city; the neighborhood where our hotel was reminded me of Saigon, or at least the south Bronx. The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world-- over 24 million, scattered throughout four primary nations-- Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria-- who have no nation. I have predicted trouble behind that, and I do not at this time see any reason to modify that crude general analysis. But so far, the only unrest on this long (six weeks, 27 gigs) tour has been in MOSCOW, where I definitely didn't want to go at all, when it was slipped into the schedule months after I had first absent-mindedly allowed myself to be booked for this tour.
All that said, however, the people I have been working with in the 19th annual Efes Pilsen Blues Festival tour, which has featured many, many of the very top names in the blues since 1990, have been very
nice-- even, fun-- to work with. And the crowds have been very responsive, by and large. I do have to say that it is not quite as satisfying for me, a solo artist, and a poet/lyricist, the full appreciation of whose work depends on an understanding of his words, to sing for folks whose English is labored at best, and completely nonexistent for the majority. We are in Ankara at the moment, where (with Istanbul) more people speak English than anywhere else. That doesn,t comprise anything like 50 percent.
And I do not like the drivers here. I have some credentials to speak about this, of course. Here in Turkey, the pedestrian does not have the right-of-way on the streets and in the busy downtown intersections; the automobiles and trucks do. Our primary bus driver, Recep, is a pro (he doesn't speak 10 words of English, but we have clicked as fellow pro drivers), but the rest of the drivers in Turkey must have gotten their licenses at whatever the Turkish equivalent of Walmart's is. It's bad, y'all, watch yer step, I'm telling you!
I have another 19 days here, I am past the halfway hump, and there are no more gigs in the troubled southeast part of the country, down where Turkey is fighting the separatist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), bombing and shelling in northern Iraq, with the permission of the US government.
Nobody in my current business combine seems to think that last part is particularly important. But I do! At any time, the Kurds in Iraq could be full up to here with the double game the US is playing with them-- on the one hand, regarding Kurdish Iraq as an asset, because it is not Sunni or Shiite, but on the other hand, allowing our NATO ally, Turkey, to bomb and shell other Kurds who are not conveniently under the ''protection'' of the US-- and decide in desperation to send more suicide bombers, and to other places.
I want to end my commentary on Turkey in a positive way. As the tour bus was pulling in to Pammulkale, a relatively poor town way far out in the central highlands, I saw a hill capped with a white rock material. My heart leapt; I knew, without being told, that I was looking at a major deposit of meerschaum, from which the best and most expensive pipes in the world are carved. There are deposits in Germany too, but Turkey has always been one of the major sources of this unique mineral.
I was honored ro meet Birol �zsak, one of the greatest meerschaum craftsmen in the world. I sat in his shop with him, a simple, somewhat dusty little workshop in a town that (except for the fact that the signs were all in Tuekish) a person could take for Shawnee, Antlers, Wewoka, Ada, Atoka, or any other eastern Oklahoma place. For the first time in my life I actually carved block meerschaum: in the time it took Birol to carve a little masterwork (he asked me what my favorite animal was, and I told him it was cats), I carved my own rough cat, and Birol congratulated me on a good first try!
He gave me six or seven pounds of raw meerschaum to take back to the US and work on. Then he took my picture, from various angles. When I get back, I will have an exquisite masterpiece, a pipe carved in my own likeness from the highest quality meerschaum, waiting for me! I will look back on this as the greatest cultural exchange I had on this tour.
I was in Alberta just before coming out on this Turkish tour, in two venues, one near Edmonton and one south of Calgary. I want to say a big, big thank you to all the people in Alberta who make me feel so blessed and happy every time I visit up there (and everywhere in Canada that I go. (He', mon dieu, j'aime le Canada toute entier, je l'ai dit mille fois!! ) I will be back in Calgary for my last Canadian appearance of the year December 5, the day after/ /I return from Turkey/, /I hope to see you there!
Also, a big shout out to the *Dohms*, the *Lavictoires, (who I would have called, but I can't use my phone in any other country but Canada), and the Shananaquets, as well as all the other families who have so steadfastly supported me and the Workers. You are ALL my big ol' family, and that goes for each and every one who isn't actually part of a blood family, and more. Also, lest I ferget, to Larry and Bert and Hawk and all my other Native American brothers from other mothers (including Punkin Shananaquet et al)! To all my brothers and sisters, veterans of our wars from every country through which I have travelled (19, by last count, including Turkey, Russia and Cyprus on this tour). And especially to Roy and Ann.*
**
*I recorded 23 songs in Nashville during the last two weeks of September, and I want y'all to know that this C+W session, or at least a song or two off it, is/are going GOLD!*
**
*Well, I'm getting tired now, but I keep y'all in my heart while I am finishing up here in Turkey (the food here, at least, is outstanding, if you are staying at a four-five star hotel, anyway). Let us pray for the new president, and that he will be able to make things happen with the not deeply changed conservative center-right Congress!*
**
*Happy Thanksgiving, Y,all,*
**
*Watermelon Slim*
Back To List
November 16, 2008
Hi Bill I hope all is well in your world. I got this email from a friend in Florida and thought you would appreciate it. I emailed him back and told him about you and your patriotic stance against the wars.
Van (the coffee man) Wilkin
Wisconsin
*This is an article about Veterans for Peace (VFP) in strong protest _today_ of letting Bush and Cheney off the hook for what they have done to destroy peace in our world during their rein. I joined VFP in 2004, a year into the Iraq War. The local chapter plants the crosses on the beach several times a year. It's an outcropping of the 1960's Veterans Against the War group. *
**
*I joined Veterans Against the War in 1968 as soon as I got off of US Marine Corps active duty (was still in the active reserves). We marched in protest of the Vietnam War. The movie "Born on the Forth of July" was a tribute to the founder of the movement, Ron Kovic played by Tom Cruise. I got to know him a little and I did a couple of protest march's with John Kerry (he was there but I didn't know him). We Marines marched with the tunic-top of our dress blue uniform, cut-off jeans and sandals.
We took no crap from anyone, as we represented those who served the United States with pride.*
**
*Protesting your government by taking to the streets (some times in civil disobedience) is very patriotic in my book. Citizens who care about their country need to take a stand when it's policies head in the wrong direction. My mind always goes back to the first days of the Iraq War during our initial attacks which were called 'Shock & Awe'. Our country send many HI (high explosive) Cruise Missiles into a very urban area of downtown Baghdad slamming them into power plants, headquarter buildings, etc. Those missiles also hit a few housing projects and restaurants, instantly vaporizing common citizens and families -- some at their dinner table or just kicked back at home enjoying their family for the evening. These were the actions of Bush & Cheney, men who have no regard for the common citizens of Iraq or the United States, for that matter. They should be jailed. * *Please see the article below and take a few minutes to visit our web site at *www.veteransforpeace.org*
Back To List
October 21, 2008
Hey Slim,
Just saying howdy. Long time no et cetera.
Read a great review of No Paid Holidays that pretty much sums up the way I feel, too. The guy talked right pretty, only he took way longer to say it (i.e., you The Man, man!):
www.jazzreview.com/cd/review-19942.html
Hurry up and come ahead back on with it! We kept your room just the way you left it, aslt (www.thetripledoor.net/calendar.aspx
Yer Buddy Yer Pal,
Merciful Lee Dickens
Back To List
October 21, 2008
hello slim, i pray you have a safe journey to turkey and russia, i know the people will love your music. your music tansends languages and cultures. everyone loves good music and music filled with heart. they are in for a treat. we can not wait to see you on this side on the ocean though, missing you very much. i want to inpart an irish charm for your travels: may the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, may the sun shine warm upon your shoulders, may the rain fall softly upon your fields and until we meet again may god hold you in the hollow of his hand. be well your loving friends and fan the dohms
Back To List
October 19, 2008
My wife and I saw your solo gig in Turner Valley, Alberta and were, like everyone there, blown away. Amazed and delighted as we were by your harp blowing, and Dobro picking, we left the hall in tears after hearing your stunning encore acapella rendition of "Northwest Passage". My wife never had much use for Stan Rogers, or that tune until she heard you do it.
Doug
Back To List
October 19, 2008
Hey Slim
We really enjoyed your show at Turner Valley, Alberta, Canada last nite. You are one hard-workin' musician! Your a capella version of Northwest Passage was a jaw-dropper. Thanks for some incredible music. Enjoyed the blues as well as your new country.
ann & phil
Longview, Ab.
Back To List
October 17, 2008
It was great to meet and learn about Watermelon Slim on the Oct '08 Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise. You've got two new fans in Huntington, NY! Thanks for the great shows.
*Laurie Hollister*
Associate Director - Office of Career Services
New York Institute of Technology
Back To List
October 14, 2008
Hey Slim, it's great to see you're coming back to Edmonton this Friday Oct 17 - we're all really looking forward to catching your show again. Last time I saw you was at the Edmonton Blues Festival in August 2007, where I also had the incredibly good fortune to jam a couple of songs with you at the Chateau Louis Hotel afterwards (I'm a piano player).
I was reading your recent blogs and I'm saddened to hear of the loss of your friend Craig Lawler. I read your entry with many mixed feelings. Some of those feelings arise since I too am a student who has benefited from playing music with you and other blues men who are so willing to spend some time with those of us who are learning. Some of those feelings are since I have also experience the loss of a loved one through cancer not too long ago. But perhaps most of all, it is to feel or know of the loss of someone so young who was able to give so much strength and love during their battle with this disease which you describe so well as "inexorable."
Maybe that's part of what the blues are...being close to someone and feeling deeply in our hearts what it is while we see them express such strength, dignity and beauty. And maybe it's our chance to try to share those feelings with others through our music and our words.
Sincerely,
Andy Nikiforuk
Back To List
October 7, 2008
Mr. Slim!
I remember meeting you in Stillwater at Mike's College Bar back in fall 2003, at one of your shows. I was a senior at OSU at the time workin on a history degree, and Professor Petrin told our class that his friend would be playing blues that night. I am a huge blues fan, so I walked down to Washington Street and watched--I was amazed. I was really impressed by your slide guitar, especially your Vietnam song with the "Moby Dick" theme--what is the name of that one? After the show, I bought your "Big Shoes To Fill" CD, and got to meet you and talked briefly at the bar. I offered to buy you a beer but you split! Then after listening to the album I found out what happened to you in Clarksdale--sorry about that. After that night, I started playing blues with my friend Kevin--we recorded a couple tapes full of covers and original stuff. Thanks for being such an inspiration, and for keeping the blues tradition strong and real. Would love to hear from you!
Robert
Back To List
October 3, 2008
I've been hitting a lot of midwestern blues clubs, but was crushed that I couldn't make your Louisville or Grafton shows, so I started feeling sorry for myself and started a month-long Slim & the Workers blues fest of my own! I decided to fill the gaping hole in my collection and finally ordered Wheel Man (awesome, btw!) and lo and behold there I was on the inside jacket. I'm just tickled to death, Bill! Hope you're having a great time...I miss your wise words at DBS! Stop in sometime, ok?
Dewey
Back To List
September 29, 2008
Hello to Slim and the Workers....my name is Jenny, I was fortunate to be able to take a nite off from work and take in a show of yours in Dubuque IA, on September 19th. I came from a couple of hours away in Wisconsin, and it was well worth the journey to be able to take in a
show of yours! I'm a new fan of yours, I was given my first cd,
Watermelon Slim and the Workers, for my birthday this summer, I now
have 4 of them, just can't get enough. I'm so thankful to my bro for
introducing me to your band, and so happy to have been able to see you live.
I just have not been able to get that show out of my mind yet, you are a superb performer, your whole band is, and very friendly and
courteous to your fans. So much of a connection with the audience,
down right HOT blues, the way you cut loose on that dobro and harp,
you ARE the best blues show I've been lucky enough to part take in.
Thanks for the awesome show and for signing my cd that nite Slim. I
really wish I could see you up north of Dubuque on the Mississippi River
sometime in the future in my town....which is La Crosse Wisconsin. We
pack in quite the crowds in our town for live music, have quite a few
blues bars in the whole mix up. It's a nice old river town with a lot
of personality, just like you Slim :)
Congrats on all the blues awards, you are so deserving. And thanks so
much for writing songs for all of us people out in the world who do "Hard Labor", that is how I connected with your music so strongly, I love what you have to say and how you say it, thanks for bringing blues
to us REAL people in the USA. Love ya!
Sincerely,
Jenny Baer
Back To List
September 27, 2008
hi slim and the workers, i am sure you must know we had another fantastic time seeing you in debuque. its so obvious how we feel about you and you music. my mojo goes with me everywhere i am a big believer in the charms that special objects possess. i wanted to say how very moved we all are to your tribute to the soldiers and the beautiful taps you play on the harmonica, that is one of my favorites of you shows. it is obvious that it is so very heartfelt by you. i believe the we were meant to find you and get to know you, our lives have been enriched by the experience. like hearts are drawn to like hearts. hope you are enjoying the time off before the cruise. would love to see you in ok city on the third. don,t be surprised if we show up. if we do not get there we wish you a safe and happy time in turkey and russia , may god bless you and be with you every step of the way. your loving fans and friend
the Dohms
ps we missed your before we even got out of the building in dubuque
pps we are nameing our next kitten Mouse Master
Back To List
September 27, 2008
Dear Blues Fans,
It is with the greatest sadness that I must report to you the death of
Craig Lawler, my dear friend from Stillwater, Oklahoma. Craig passed
at 5:30 PM yesterday, after a courageous battle with inoperable kidney
cancer. He was 33.
Craig was my greatest harp student ever. I met Craig in 1999, when I
was still a graduate student at Oklahoma State University, and gave
him five hour-plus lessons in playing the harmonica, sitting on my
front porch in Stillwater. Craig took the rudimentary lessons I
imparted and took the harp far beyond anything I have ever been able
to accomplish with the instrument. A few years later, Craig made a
point of meeting me at one of the Workers' appearances in Colorado,
where he had become an attorney. He showed me a few tricks that Jason
Ricci had recently shown him, and I couldn't even make a note with the
harp. I threw my hat in frustration!
This year, I have dedicated all my appearances, solo and with the
Workers, as well as Watermelon Slim and the Workers' current release
on NorthernBlues, /No Paid Holidays/, to this incredibly brave young
man, who had lived his entire life with haemophilia, before he ever
contracted the cancer that eventually took his life.
Craig was valedictorian of the graduating class of Oklahoma State in
1999. This was a truly brilliant fellow, who ripped through law school
in two years, and practiced law in Denver, CO. He was the gentlest of
human creatures one ever could hope to encounter. Some people will
probably wonder how it is that a lawyer could have the blues. I give
you Craig Lawler, whose mother also died of cancer during Craig's
final battle with the inexorable disease. He helped care for her until
he himself could no longer rise above his own condition.
Craig never even got recorded, to my knowledge. He could play all
seven positions on a diatonic harmonica fluidly. I don't personally
know any other harp player who ever achieved that, though such men and
women may exist. I certainly do not approach that degree of
accomplishment in my "first" axe, and never will.
The funeral will take place in Colorado, and there will be a memorial
service in Stillwater the week of September 29-October 6. I never
cried for my mother or father, because both of them lived their lives
absolutely to the max. They would never have tolerated such a fuss
being made over them. But I can not help but mourn my buddy Craig, who
offered so DAMN much to the world, and to the music we love, and was
taken by God the Father before his incredible musical talent was fully
recognized and acknowledged. Your prayers for Craig, and for the
Lawler family of Oklahoma, are appreciated. Requiescat in Pace per
Domino, Craig Lawler.
Slim
Back To List
September 25, 2008
Greetings, Slim - just a note to say I finally got the chance to see you live at Famous Dave's in Minneapolis recently. I discovered your music on the XM
Radio Bluesville channel and have been spreading the good word about you and the Workers ever since. You guys put on a great show and it was great to see
the band live. I especially like Michael Newberry, as he looks and dresses the part to a "T". It's great to see a dedicated group of musicians living the
lifestyle and bringing your wonderful brand of the blues to the people. Wishing you much success in the future and hoping you'll come back to Minneapolis again soon.
Clay Hagen
Back To List
September 25, 2008
Rusty,Yvonne & Kendall, From Harrison Hot Springs,B.C. Miss ya's BIG TIME...will catch up to ya soon...Hi Michael,Cliff and Macker!! from Kendall!! KEEP IT REAL SLIM!!!
Rusty...
Back To List
September 24, 2008
Well Slim and the delightful workers!!
2 great performances in a month!! Ed, Patti and I have had the time of our lives at both of the locations (louisville and dubuque). Attending your shows is like a week at a spa. Not only is it a mental relief from life, but a spiritual one at well. I ususally need a chiropractor that next day after the show, because my body hurts from dancing!! As I have told you All before I never listen to blues before Watermelon Slim and the Workers came into my life. It was ALL Kenney Chesney baby. Somehow, kenny is by the wayside, and it is ALL YOU.
Never in a Million Years would you have told me, Tracy you will embarque on a journey of fine musicians ( and award winning ones as well ) and become friends with them. (you all may not think of us Dohm's as friends) When I and my family have attended your shows, you guys make us feel like family.(especial in louisville) I can NOT help but to act crazy and dance like a fool to your music!! When we came to Dubuque to see your show that was MY first day off for 19 days straight!! For you ALL that is nothing!! But for me with my business and running my 3 boys to 5 days a week practice. (guitar, football and cross coutry) that is alot of runnning around. Not to mention that my husband works evenings. I hardly ever take a day for myself with being a mom and all. So, Kudos for a GREAT time!! I LOVED IT!!
I can't not wait to see you guys again. But,Your schedule shows slim away to turkey... Do they know the blues in Turkey?? and the rest of you to see your families. Cliff, Mike and Ronnie have a great time off, and to your Slim have a VERY safe journey abroad and be careful. Your friends and dear fans need you back in the states. SOON!!
God Bless, untill next time we meet
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
September 18, 2008
Hi there
My name is Geoff and I have recently became a big fan of yours ever since I accidentally Clicked on a track 'Hard Times' while browsing for Blues on the net. Wow! The next thing was to get as much of your stuff as I could and I was not disappointed either.
I am a roadi for a Blues band here in North Devon England and when I got the band to listen to 'Hard Times' They too were knocked off their feet. The band 'The Spoonful' are trying awfully hard to play 'Hard Times' in their set but I guess they ain't got what it takes
What I would like to know is, When are you lot going to visit us here in England and if you are could you fix up a gig down here in Devon you have a lot fans round here now and like me they can't wait to see you lot live.
Keep on knocking them out.
Geoff
Back To List
September 13, 2008
slim...thank you very a great evening of blues and fun...we can hardly wait for your return...i hope you bring the ''workers''....we all wish you happiness,sucess and good health in the future.....bill,bruce,evan,glenn,sue ,lynn and randy
William
Back To List
September 8, 2008
hi slim and the wonderful workers, we had such a wonderful time with you in louisville ky, we were we so flattered that you loved out watermelon slim tee shirts. we are traveling to see you again in dubuque ia, can not wait! i hope you like your wrinch. we have taken michaels suggestion and branched out to listen to more blues artists and are loving the music, but to tell the truth slim and the workers takes us to where we love to g. your show at stevie rays was great! you played all of our favorites.the beat is irrisistable. your honset music and lyrics is a great escape from the stresses of the everyday. your very faithful fans the dohms, patti, ed, tracy, jason ryan, and adam. gods speed and we will see you in iowa, ps from ohio its a long drive but well worth the trip. i may have to call my job and tell the boss i won"t be in, had too much slim last nignt ( as if i could get too much)
Back To List
September 8, 2008
Hey Slim-
What a treat, being able to see you perform twice in three days! The show at the college in Mankato was the best performance they have had for the students in the four plus years I've been attending that series. And I know & heard the students thoroughly enjoyed & appreciated their "assignment". I also enjoyed it so much; I had to come back to St Peter, for a second look and the little change in venue! Again, no disappointment, think you gained a few fans in southern Minnesota, hope to see you back here again. Good luck in Russia & Turkey, I know you'll blow 'em dead.
Ken
Back To List
September 3, 2008
Bill,
Just a quick note to tell you how much we enjoyed your shows in Marquette. I say shows because the performance you put on at our "After Party" was nothing short of fantastic!!! I truly appeciate the time you spent with us after Festival show signing autographs and just talking. I for one can hardly wait for the opportunity to see you again!
Regards,
Wayne Dickinson
Back To List
September 2, 2008
Hi Slim,
Also caught you at the Yooper Blues Fest in Marquette. I was lucky to be in town for my Nieces' wedding. She released me from the second half of the reception to see you. If you could see by the stage in the daylight, I was the only guy with a suit and tie on.
It was a privilage to see you and the GREAT band you have, and yes, your drummer is rock solid, light touch, everything you could ask for in an anchor. Can ya tell I'm a drummer?
We gotta get you to Fitzgeralds in the Chicago Suburbs.
If you haven't played there, it's one of the premier venues in the ChiTown Area.
Travel Safe.
Chris Buck
Back To List
September 2, 2008
Slim,
I just wanted to say thank you for an amazing show at the Blues Fest in Marquette, MI last night. I have to admit that I'd never heard your music prior to finding out you'd be playing up here. I looked around the internet to try and find some samples of your music, and stumbled upon a video of you playing "Smokestack Lightning" solo/acoustic. After seeing that, I knew I was in for a treat, and you did not disappoint last night. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the few notes you played on your harp and guitar during your soundcheck had more feeling in them than entire works by most of the other artists out there today.
And in a time when many blues artists seem to gravitate toward a more rock-oriented, "good time" sort of sound, it's wonderful to see an artist such as yourself who is so firmly rooted in the delta tradition.
Certainly, some of your songs have a good time vibe and got the crowd moving, but I also really appreciate the fact that you tackle some fairly deep issues in your music. It's obvious that you've lived the blues. That fact comes through in both your singing and playing, which is something that can't really be said for a lot of other players out there. I apologize for going on so long, but I was simply blown away by every aspect of your performance. I hope you'll find your way up here again sometime in the future.
Joe
Back To List
September 1, 2008
Hey Watermelon Great show in marquette m.i. & the after show jam @ the Skybox. Its David from Coolerlight.com It was nice shooting
the shit with ya in the back about my invention. hit me back when you get a chance.
Back To List
August 31, 2008
Hi ya slim and rew,
got around to buying your other CDs, you were a huge hit at the Narooma Blues Fest in 2007, loved your song about Australia,
have you recorded that track about Australia at all ? would love to hear it again. When are you coming back to Oz ?? you and your crew are legends,
All the best in your travels
cheers
Martin,
Back To List
August 31, 2008
Hey Slim!! Its Michael from Green St. in Cambridge and also Broadway from the 70's..Anyway I am happy to see you doing so good and people
really hearing you hehe..Take care and I hope you come around soon,
peace and love from Cambridge bro
Back To List
August 29, 2008
HEY SLIM
YOU JUST MADE A BUNCH OF GOOD OLD GIRLS FROM EDMONTON VERY VERY HAPPY, WE SEE YOU ARE COMING UP TO EDMONTON IN OCTOBER!!!! WE WILL PRESS OUR BLUES FESTIVAL T-SHIRTS WITH YOUR PICTURE ON THEM FROM THE BLUES FESTIVAL AND BE FRONT ROW AND CENTRE!
THANKS FOR MAKING OUR WEEKEND!!! P.S. BRING SOME WARM CLOTHES...
Corrine Caithness
Back To List
August 26, 2008
Wow!
Mr. Slim, I had the great pleasure of seeing you and The Workers last night at Stevie Ray's Blues Bar in Louisville KY. What a show!
It was so refreshing to see a real band whip up a mess of home cooked authentic blues and have a good time doing so. Your harp and slide skills are nothing short of amazing and you sang from the gut, heart, and from deep down in your soul. As for The Workers... you couldn't find a better band than those guys. Your originals kick ass and your selection of covers was quite tasty. I bought your latest CD last night and popped in on the way home. It rocks and it will stay in my CD player for a long time. I wish you and The Workers much happiness and success.
God bless you, thank you for serving our country and get back to Louisville as soon as you can. Thanks again for a knockout show.
Brent Thurman
Louisville KY
Back To List
August 25, 2008
*/
*/Mr. Slim is what my grandson Andrew called ya when he met you yesterday[Aug 24th] at the fruit market in Kingston, Ont. He was in AWE all day. He is 7 and loves the BLUES. All he did when we got home was play the harp. We thoroughly enjoyed your show, and hope to see you again soon. /* */Keep knockin em down./* */Cheers Mike and Andrew. A couple of LIMESTONERS........................./*
/*
Back To List
August 22, 2008
Hi Watermelon Slim and the Workers!
This is Portia and Gary. We met you 3 years ago at Brackins Blues Bar in Maryville, TN. We are listenting to the Blues channel tonight and heard you twice! Great music. We love you and wanted you to know it. Can't wait to see you in Maryville,next time you play at Brackins Blues Bar.
Portia and Gary
Back To List
August 22, 2008
To whomever this may read,
I would like to express my gratitude for the signing of a Watermelon Slim CD.
It has been given to me by my brother and sister after they had visited the Belgium Rythm and Blues Festival.
I was pleased to read the words which were directed to me by a man whom I presume DOES understand the way in which the wars, chosen by politicians, are being conducted by the soldiers in the field and the way it tends to change a man's perspective, for better or for worse.
I do hope that I will be able to attend a performance somewhere in the future, for it means 2 things:
1. My tour hasn't went FUBAR and I have been able to return to my family and friends in one piece.
2. I get to watch a man who took the time to sign his CD with a small token of understanding on a soldiers' point of view.
Please do take the time to give my thanx to Watermelon Slim (or the man portraying the artist). It has been a joy to listen to his music and lyrics.
Best regards, the Dutchy from Afghanistan
Back To List
August 21, 2008
Slim, phenomenal show last night in Unity, Me. I'm the guy who requested 'Rattlesnake' (great job!). Forgot to mention, I dj locally here, & we play the band's records all the time.
Come on back, soon.
Jeff Hayward
Back To List
August 21, 2008
Slim, Thank you so very much for a great evening of the blues last night in tiny Unity Maine. You are an incredible musician, with enough energy for a stageful of blues players. The Workers also were a pure treat. Thank you also for taking the time to meet and greet us through the night. You autographed a cd for a friend of mine that was involved in a serious motorcycle accident, and for that we are both very grateful.Take care Slim and I WILL see you on your next stop in our great state.
Hopefully the fishing will be a little better next time.
Andy Mc.
Back To List
August 17, 2008
Hey Slim , just want to say thanx much for the show on the 15th . the workers were awesome, as were you .and you all were all VERY ACESSABLE.
I picked up ( no paid holidays) my fav. is ( DAD in the DISTANCE ) real BLUES MASTERPIECE , tear jerker too. HOPE YOU PLAY THIS TUNE ON YOUR NEXT TRIP TO THE NARROWS...............COME BACK SOON ....GOD BLESS YOU ALL.........
CUSTER
Back To List
August 14, 2008
ooooooh slim we miss you so bad it hurts, we will see you in louisvile ky come hell or high water. we are so in love with the new cd. you rock our world and we love it. the last time we saw you was in oxford mi and it seems like a thousand years ago. there is nothing like listening to you and the band play live,. it is thrilling!!! i have a brother in louisville and hopefully we can bring him along. you, the band and your music are a balm in our lives. happy you are home safe from your overseas tour. i'm sure everyone adored you all. be safe on your journeys. see you in horse country.
your very good friends the dohms ed,
patti, jason, tracy, ryan and adam amd julie.
Back To List
August 12, 2008
Dear Mr. Slim:
Meeting you and Ann and Walter ( and his daughter), was wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed working with you, Michael, Ronnie and Cliff at the Cincy Blues Festival. You are the nicest blues man I ever met. It was nice of you to give me the empty whiskey bottle at the end of the night.
I'm sorry I couldn't join you all for the after party at the hotel-I was really worn out by the end of the night. Thank you so much for headlining our event. I sure hope I see you again sometime. I'll be watching for you. If there's ever anything I can do for you, please get in touch with me through the Cincy Blues Society. They have my contact information.
Tammy
Back To List
August 11, 2008
Salutations!
I would like to give Watermelon Slim and the Workers a warm and heartfelt thank you for the wonderful performance I was so fortunate to see last night at the Lakeview Lodge in Lawrenceville, PA. Once again, I was completely blown away by the amount of talent Slim, Cliff B., Ronnie Mac and Mr. "Slick" Newberry exude as a driving machine and musical force. I look forward to having them back in the area soon, and wish them nothing but the best with the remainder of thier tour. Keep chasing your dreams, you all deserve every ounce of recognition and award!
Always and forever a fan,
Leah
Back To List
August 10, 2008
Enjoyed meeting you and the workers at the Cincy Blues Fest and was floored by your performance. Hope to see you back here soon!
Francesca - Cincinnati
Back To List
August 7, 2008
*I saw slim in Lewiston ny and he is great: I have lost touch with a lot of music but am back: he is one of the best harp players on the circuit today and I am a HUGE fan: his music is back porch stomp style and I love it!!*
*Renee*
Back To List
August 7, 2008
Sir.
I absolutely loved your concert, hope you will not mind my saying that I enjoyed your presentation more than the second. Keep up the GREAT Performances!!!!!!!!!!!!!! God Bless.........
respectfully,
Darlene
Back To List
August 7, 2008
Yo! Slim,
My names Dewey and I met you last night after your concert at Art Park in Lewiston, New York. I just gotta tell again how much I enjoyed your show! Like I told you last night, I just turned 65, this was my first outdoor concert, I love the blues, I love the harp and I bought my first Slim Harpo 45 rpm record (Rainin' In My Heart) in 1959. This was the first time I heard you play and *I was totally blown away!* I mean to tell you, I ain't never heard anyone play better. And the boys in your band (The Workers) are awesome! They were right on and right there. I mean, that's what I'm talkin' about! You made my night and put blues back in my soul. I had chills all night long just listening to you. I just ordered your CD's on line and hope to see you again at one of your concerts.
God bless ya man, you are the greatest,
Dewey Godfrey
Back To List
August 4, 2008
Slim,
Thank you for a wonderful evening at the Blue Door, Kathy and I were thrilled.
I know you have found commercial success as a Blue's Man and indeed you are one of the best in my book but anyone attending the Blue Door and your intimate solo show should easily discern you to be so much more. I sense there is yet a wealth of expression churning inside, awaiting creative release.
Thank you further for remembering my previous email and taking a few minutes to visit with me about "Hard Times" in Push County and I now recall meeting you in 1980 or 81 at the Clayton Homecoming festivities, where you sang the "Frog Song", among others, on a vacant lot across the street from Sharpe's Pharmacy.
Please accept our sincere wishes and prayers for your continued well being and commercial success. We hope to have opportunity to see you perform with The Workers soon.
Our best, to you.
Steve / Kathy Randall
Back To List
July 29, 2008
As originally seen in your Myspace page, which I see you've left untended since February - dishes still piled up, ashtray on the porch picked through by neighborhood nabobs for choice butts, puppy skeleton chained up in the backyard, but hey I digress (it's what I do), here - catch:
Hey Slimbo,
Just tugging on yer sleeve to say howdy. Hope you make it back out here this year! Maybe between San Diego and Alberta? Let's get talking to Triple Door again. Your name came up in conversation with Pura Fe recently. I said to her that her slide playing on her song "Home" reminded me of you, and she said "I know him! We were on the Blues Cruise together!" She said you were sweet (hoo ha). I did nothing to dispel the quaint illusion. I can tell you're having fun with your Shiny New Friends now, so I'll let you get back to it. Don't worry about us fans from the early, hungry days. We'll get by on the meager memories,
sniff...
Merciful Lee Dickens
Seattle
Back To List
July 23, 2008
Hi.
Please pass on my heartfelt thanks to Watermelon Slim and the band for their performance on Sunday night. He and the band put everything into the show and made it an unforgettable night of blues. Just make sure he/they come back!!!
All the best from the North East of England
Charlie Reavley
Back To List
July 20, 2008
Dear Mr Slim,
You saved the blues on Saturday 12/07 in Belgium (Peer)
Thank the lord because you were there. Fabulous act and singing. Thanks !!!!!!!!
Pierot and Koen
Back To List
July 14, 2008
Hey Slim and the Worker,
Hope all is well on the road.
I am writing is response to Mr. Ted Wolf's blog on July 11th. I am SO with you. The music is so addicting. I jam to their music everyday, and as load as my speakers will go. And like you with the windows down. I also drive a 67 Jeep for the summer, BUT I do not have a working radio therefor no CD player, so I carry my iPOD and listen to their music that way. One of these times I will have a cop behind me and never know it. "Call my Job" has to be added to the playlist. That is such a FANTASTIC Song.
actually the entire album "No Paid Holiday's" is a AWESOME. My boys are Crazy about it. Korbin just got a Bass guitar and him and Kheagun are going to start a band.( hahaha) Watch out world!! they are only 14 and 12. I am not sure if I am ready for this.
Well, Can not wait till you all are in the Indiana-Ohio area again. I think Patti and I (my mother in law) will be taking a trip to Louisville, Ky. to see you on the 25th of August. The husbands say they are not letting us go alone, I told them we would not get lost we have a GPS , we will be fine. My husband say that is NOT what I am worried about. I am afraid that you and my mom won't come back home and Slim will have 2 new girlfriends. The funniest part, he was serious.
We well can not wait to see Y'ALL again.
Have a safe trip around the world.
Your #1 Melonhead
God Bless
Sunflower Studio Photography
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
July 13, 2008
Hi,
Yesterday I saw Slim and his Workers in Peer (Belgium).
It was a great show.
That was really what we here in Belgium call the blues.
John
Back To List
July 12, 2008
Dear blues-man
What a performance at The BRBF PEER, i was impressed by all off you
A real discovery into my blues-discovery-journey!
Thanks!
Arnfried Blancke
Back To List
July 12, 2008
I was in Pistoia last night, thank for the show!
I wish you'll come back in Italy next summer.
Giulio
Back To List
July 11, 2008
*Superb!*
I got the disk yesterday due to becoming a Slim junkie after having seen the show at the Regattabar in Cambridge, MA a while back...Already have tix for the upcoming show at The Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River, MA on 8/15.
I was thinking Slim could appreciate this mental picture:
I'm a banker at one of the nation's largest banks and was commuting home in traffic yesterday listening to NPH for the first time. I was literally jumping out of my suit bobbing n' weaving to the incredible tunes, had all the windows down so that anyone in a car nearby could hop on the same plane, and I really think I made some peoples' days...smiles were abound! All the power, man!
Here's a plea to include "Call my job" in the set list on the 15th.
Ted Wolf
Back To List
July 10, 2008
Hey Slim and the Workers,
I just want to let you know that there are some very excited people here in West Virginia and southern Ohio, as we count the days to your arrival at the Front Row in Parkersburg for the IVAW benefit show. It's going to be a party like this valley has never seen. Hey, we will even celebrate your birthday, if you like. (Shame on those Chicago boys!) Hope you are having a blast in Europe.
Lynn in Marietta
Back To List
June 26, 2008
Boozhoo Watermelon & the Workers,
Just dropping a note to say your show (Oxford, MI BBQ & Blues) and new CD are as fresh as fiddleheads in spring. We didn't have the full crew there, but some must persevere and forge those new trails into the unknown and I can testify that more than us three enjoyed the showmanship and style of Watermelon Slim and the Workers.
The plan was to buy the new CD "No Paid Holidays" was at the top of our list for weeks. We heard some airplay already from Saturday night GVSU Blues with Greg Bluben. You guy's are definitely getting airplay here in southwest Michigan! We still think fondly of the Billy's Blizzard night in Grand Rapids, MI in February and what a powerful show.
Congratulations on your accolades in Tunica awhile back. You and the Workers are deserving of every award out there. Enjoy the EURO Tour and we have emailed some very good friends who plan on catching your show in Winnipeg, Manitoba. We plan on going to the Marquette Blues Festival in August so until then - the Blues are alive and well and traveling with Slim...
Yours truly - The Shananaquet Family
Back To List
June 25, 2008
Hey Slim,
Last Friday night at the Creekside Blues festival at Gahanna - you guys were fantastic! Thanks for being so gracious to my friends before the show - my girlfrend still can't get over you bowing to her. Count in three more new fans. My twenty something son was very impressed with all of you. Your encore solo finale of "Angel from Montgomery" was awesome. Can't wait till you get back to Ohio again. The new CD has some great tracks.
Frank
Back To List
June 23, 2008
Hey Guys,
Well it has been a great week!!!! Our family has had the pleasure of seeing 2 of Slim and Workers shows in 3 days. When we were walking to the gates of the Oxford show, and saw you guys rolling in Patti and I about flipped out when we saw you wearing your peach outfit. THAT IS OUR FAVORITE!!!!! We had so much FUN dancing and being CRAZY.
Hopefully Y'all don not think we are a bunch of weirdos.
As always, you guys amaze us, your music is so fresh and WE LOVE THE NEW CD!! My Mother in Law and I can not stop listening to "Call my Job".
The boys love it to!! We hope you start singing that in your live shows, it would be a HUGH HIT!!! Ronnie your song is AWESOME!! Patti and I love the beat. I could be used for a latin dance!!! Maybe we can suggest it for the next season of Dancing with the stars. Wouldn't that be a scream!
Well I had the BEST Birthday WEEK of my life. 2 slim show in one week and 3 total for the Month. What a BLAST. Well gentleman, Have a save trip over seas, and IF I could get out of the country I would fly and see you there as well.
Will write soon.
--
God Bless
Sunflower Studio Photography Montgomery
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
June 20, 2008
Well, I was witness to ANOTHER GREAT performance by Slim and the Workers. Last night was the first time the children was able to see you guys perform, and they had a ball. My youngest son says he is never going to wash him hand again.(he got to shake your hand) I was laughing at that. He was serious.
I am also amazed by every performance, they are alway sooooooooooo different. The only thing that is the same is Mike Newberry, that man is a machine. He is flawless!! He cracks me up! Cliff you are a RIOT.
I feel like part of the crew when you come over and talk to us. The boys thought that was awesome.
Thank you Slim for signing my new CD cover, my husband thought It was funny that he did not have to tell you what to write. We are just Crazy about you guys!!
We will see you in Oxford on Saturday. I will be the CRAZY lady in the front partying hard, it is my Birthday!!!! and will be jamming to y'all I will send you Pictures
God Bless
Sunflower Studio Photography Montgomery
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
June 9, 2008
Hi Guys,
Well, I have seen another GREAT PERFORMANCE. I have attended 5 show in the last 8 months. I have to say every show is so different and so excited that we talk about it for days after the show. YOUR GUYS ARE AMAZING!!!! My father in Law purchased the NEW CD, which is sooooooooooooooo GOOD!!! It is a GREAT MIX!! I have listen to it at least 3 times in ONE Day!! I LOVE ...Call my Job, but honestly I LOVE them ALL. We can not wait till the 21st of this month to visit Y'all in Oxford MI. Sometimes you just need a LIVE SLIM AND THE WORKERS FIX.
Your shows are nothing like listening to the CD, which make the shows so ADDICTING!!
You guys have an amazing talent.....I would have loved to dance, but that gave an opportunity to sit back and listen to the music absorb deep into to me. I Felt so sorry for that Man with the LOUD color shirt...no one to dance with!! :<) that was entertainment in it's own.
I will get the pictures edited this week and email them to Y'all as soon as possible. There are a few that ROCK!! Thank YOU Slim for singing Angel from Montgomery for me. I first heard that song at your Show in Dayton, OH and immediately Fell in LOVE with it. I have Bonnie Raitt's version on my computer, but I love your husky voice singing it !!! IT"S GRAND
Thank you So much for letting me a HUGH fan, it has been a pleasure SEE you in a couple of weeks
--
God Bless
Sunflower Studio Photography Montgomery
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
June 9, 2008
It was great seeing you at the Waterfront Blues Festival in Toronto on June 8. Your entertaining set (and your kind comments about Canada) made for a wonderful - although rather scorching hot! - afternoon.
Chris
Back To List
June 8, 2008
Slim et al: Just wanted to say 'Thank You' for the show in Cobourg on Friday night. It was a huge treat to see the band in such an intimate room as the Royal Canadian Legion. We brought a few friends down from Peterborough, occupied a beachfront hotel and made a memorable night of it. Your music was new to my friends and blew them away. The new disc is superb and your a cappella tribute to Stan Rogers was moving. He was yet another Canadian national treasure who is not treasured enough. For sure we will treasure the memory of your visit and we'll travel as far as necessary to see you next time around.
Keep on Workin'!
Bruce Parkinson
Back To List
June 4, 2008
Hey Slim and Worker.
We are loading up the car and we will see you in Toledo, Oh on Thursday June 5th. We are YOUR CRAZY FAN CLUB that travels all over to see you, but we need a Slim and the Workers FIX. I was sooooooo disappointed when I discovered you were not coming to Ft. Wayne, In on the June 21 of June. So, We will be loading the car and driving to Oxford, MI to see you again, this time with the Boys!!! I told my husband come Hell or High Water, I am seeing Slim and the Workers for my birthday. Everyone asks "Whatcha want for your birthday?" to see Slim in concert!!!!!
What a Great Honor for you to mention our Family as a "personal aspiration". We are so honored to be a FAN of your and to be able to travel and hear you perform. YOU GUYS are AWESOME and ABSOLUTELY AMAZING people. It was a honor to know little bits of your life and to share little bits of our lives with you. What Very personal people you are!!!!
We still listen to you EVERYDAY!! my car has a 6 disc CD player and YOU are 4 of them and soon to be 5 of them. The fact of the matter is My 3 boys probably know the word better then I do these days. Every time I listen to the album I find a new favorite or a favorite part about a song. Currently it is Newspaper Reporter. My seven year old son and I will sing to each other. Don't need no glitter on my face or six inches platform shoe, what we are gonna do is lay down some sweet old OKKKKKlahoma Blues. I laugh all the time with different lyrics of your songs. Sometimes my husband and I text each other line of your music back and forth.
Well Men, Keep singing your hearts out because WE LOVE !! See you Thursday
--
God Bless
Sunflower Studio Photography
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
June 1, 2008
Well, Blues Fans,
I said I was backed up too far on this blog to talk about everything we Workers have been doing. But I'm damn sure not going to fail to memorialize our almost-but-not-quite-rained-out gig in Springfield, Nebraska for the Soaring Wings Vineyard. Now, folks, next time somebody offers you a glass of wine from Nebraska-- drink it! You'll be asking for another! Great wine, I'm telling you. Nebraska has a grape called the De Chaunac that stands up to any of them hifalutin California vintages, and indeed, to any good French Merlot! (I like my wine, y'all...)
However, fine wine aside, we will remember Soaring Wings Vineyard (S. of Omaha) for having been booked with the legendary Fito de la Parra, and the Woodstock-featured group that he has kept current all these years (the book is worth the money), Canned Heat. I have a 40-year history with the Heat, having first seen them, at the peak of their powers, with the genius Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, in 1968, years later, having loaded the by that time late Blind Owl's father's masonry truck as part of my forklift job working for a construction supply company(1974), and years after that, having had "the Sunflower", Canned Heat's guitarist, the late Henry Vestine, in MY group, Church of the Blues, up in Oregon in 1985-86. He was even my roommate, in Eugene.
Fito remains (though "the Mole", Larry taylor, is still alive and kicking, and received a BMA nomination for bass at this year's ceremony). I was honored to finally Boogie With Canned Heat again, after all these years! We Workers paid proper respect. Anyone that can keep a wild commodity (you gotta read how wild! Order Fito's book at Canned Heat's website) like Canned Heat (known to be the wildest, most down-with-it partiers that ever did a gig) going for 40 years is one HELLUVA organizer. I played harp with Canned Heat towards the end of the show, and the ghost of Alan Wilson (and the memory of one of those who replaced him, James thornbury, whom I also knew in Oregon) stood next to me on stage with Fito and his band. I will never forget, and I hope to get together again with Fito and Canned Heat!
I'll be writing more snippets as they push themselves out of my two typing fingers!
Slim
Back To List
May 29, 2008
Well, All You Melonheads,
I've gotten so far behind in this blog that I am going to just have to do triage on the huge body of things I ought to say. And would, if I could type with anything more than two fingers. But I can't, so perhaps a lot shall remain unsaid.
But the most inportant thing I, Watermelon Slim, for my Workers, Ronnie Mac, Cliff and Michael, want to say is the two most important words in English or any language,: thank you.
Many thanks to all the staff and volunteers at festivals from Lillehammer to Doheny, soundpeople, backline suppliers,merc vendors, security (hat tip to Mark of the OKC OK PD!),, teeshirt makers, Jesse Wells our website manager (three cheers, it's a fine site, ain't it!?
And I hate computers!), radio and tv producers-- Brett in Memphis, nice to see you at the awards!-- my business associates, he frontline of whom are Intrepid Artists of Charlotte-- Jake, Rick, Brad and Kevin; NorthernBlues Music Inc., my label, owner, Fred Litwin, of Ottawa big freakin hugs; Michael McClune, formerly dba Crowsfeet Productions, don't know how he styles it now, my publicist (thanks also on the publicity side to Betsie Brown, an early supporter!); and especially to the man who has made this happen by investing part of his dough and a very big part of his life in putting me on the musical roadmap ("Another Attractive Nuisance by the Roadside, you say they called it at that last rest area, dear?" "Yes, Paul, that's what the sign said. But I had no idea it would actually SING...!"), my producer and manager Chris Hardwick of Norman, Oklahoma.
Other special, eminent people to blame for my rise in notoriety:
texas Ray Isom, who always said, from the time we first got together in 1998, that he wanted to see me make it as a musician.
trent Bell, formerly of the Chainsaw Kittens and currently of Bell Labs Studios in Norman, where I have recorded 5 of my 6 CDs this century (the other was at Chris Hardwick's Southern Sounds Studio), plus other projects.
Jerry Wexler.
the original Fried Okra Jones guys, Doren Recker and Mike Rhodes, and all the FOJ people who followed.
Another Roadside Attraction, a zany New Wave Red Dirt rockin' band I was playing in at the turn of the century. Nathan and the guys helped restore my confidence when I needed the help.
My "Mom", the uppity blues mama, Barbara Dane.
Chip Eagle, old old friend Rosy Rosenblatt, and Bob Margolin.
Stovall Brown and Washtub Robbie, and Michael Moran, my oldest musical ties in the land of the majority of my ancestors.
Curtis Salgado, who taught me stuff I didn't even know I was learning at the time.
My mother-in-law, Mary Rossborough. A steadfast heart.
Rob Newberry, Patricia Ellen talbot, Famous Framus and all the rest of our Canadian friends. Canada Rocks, Y'All!
Selby Minner, wife, bass player, life companion and now widow of D.C.Minner, the grand old man of Oklahoma blues. Between 1998 and 2007 I missed Rentiesville only two years, booked or unbooked. My condolences on your loss. But I did that gig on the 17th, just like Popsy Dixon said DC would want me to.
the guys and gals at HEW Waste Recycling, working with whom gave me the grist for some great songs, and to my professors--- Rockett, Alef, Pope, Petrin, Logan, Gough, Smallwood, Jewsbury-- who helped me get the tools to write them.
And all the other musicians I have ever played with, swapped ideas with, even just basked in the sound of-- everybody from Pinetop Perkins, James Cotton, Sam Lay and Super Chikan to Dustin Pittsley, Rusty Aldridge, Aaron Squirrel and Dan Danger, Koko taylor to Miss Blues-- to Miss Amy-- to innumerable rock and country and R+B and blues and folk and jazz musicians many, many too many to mention-- thank you for sharing!
And last, to you, my readers, and, like as not, fans of Watermelon Slim and the Workers (You cannot get online ham sandwiches here. that's like, jambon.com.): the old bluesman said, as I am fond of quoting, "wasn't fer you, wouldn't be no us." Blues Foundation voters or not, it is you, the truly LIStENING public, who have made it possible for us Workers to realize lifelong personal and professional aspirations. the Dohms, the Lavictoires, the Shananaquets, and all you represent, here and abroad: Aho! We are a culture without borders. Une couture sans cotes. Una cultura sin cotidas!
And, of course, my thanks to God for my wife Honour, and my daughter Jessie. they are the reason I keep campaigning in the way I do.
Finally, if you don't already know, this year, every gig I play, as well as the new CD, No Paid Holidays, is dedicated to a very brave young man named Craig Lawler. Craig is my greatest harp student.I'm glad you were able to hear the awards ceremony, Craig. God bless you. I love you.
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
May 29, 2008
Hi Slim:
We are quite a bit North of the site of the earthquake and although a tremor was reported in Beijing and Tianjin, we did not feel a thing here.
Apparently the epicentre is in the middle of an earthquake zone but it's also near the Three Gorges Dam project, which makes me wonder about a causal connection ... Whole towns were dynamited out of existence and the people moved to new apartment buildings higher up the bank, to make room for the rising waters produced by the dam ... that's a lot of blasting to do in an earthquake zone.
For the first ten days after the quake, the English television station, CCTV, had continuous coverage of the rescue operations which are enormous: 148,000 troops went in immediately and 307 tons of supplies were air dropped from helicopters which couldn't land b/c of bad weather at first ... The troops look very well organised ... initially they were all dressed in matching blue and orange uniforms, not the green army ones you usually see here, and now see as the rebuilding begins.
I saw a report that the Americans were sending army rescue units in and mentioned it to the Chinese school principal here at my school, Mr. Sun ... He said he didn't think China would allow any American troops into the country and that, "in China we think" fire fighters should do rescue work, not soldiers"
There is still a potential for quake produced lakes flooding and the rivers are all overflowing into lakes and reservoirs ... Communites needing to be evacuated are naturally reluctant ... where will they go?
Everywhere is devestation, rubble, food lines ...
Reports are coming in of international aid ... I didn't see anything on Canada's contribution till the other day,when they showed a clip of reporters interviewing survivors from Toronto via a live feed to the site ... all the reporters and everyone in the room, all media people from Toronto were Chinese Canadians - there are many, many thousands of Chinese Canadian citizens ... and Canadians have sent $14 million ... Aid is pouring in from everywhere ...
There are 60,000 counted dead so far and 350,000 injured ... 26, 500 still missing ... 45.5 million affected ... So many orphans created ... They're also discusing the trauma to survivors and rescuers ... and sending in counsellors ... restarting schools ... but the leaders are telling people not to cry, that the government will take care of them...Our school plans to bring some of the orphans here ...
They're interviewing people on talk shows and many of the questions are quite leading, something like "What do you think of the incredibly efficient and amazingly prompt response of the government to this disaster?" and there are many clips of the two big leaders, VP Wen Jia Bao and Pres. Hu Jin Tao, who, to their credit, were there within hours and days respectively ...
There was a pointed reference to George Bush's delayed response to Katrina ... but the Chinese also were tragically and culpably slow in responding to there last earthquake disaster - in Tangshen, near Tianjin, where I am, in 1976 ....
The rhetoric is a bit over the top at times, as it always is here ... but they are sparing no effort ... Hopefully, the rebuilding process will see the same commitment. The rebuilding has begun with temporary housing already being set up ... 5 million are homeless ... some buildings are being made from huge metal storage crates ... and many, many tents have been erected ... tent making factories here are going into full production but there is a message on TV today in capital letters CHINA URGENTLY NEEDS TENTS AND TEMPORARY SHELTERS ...
They reported on the total collapse of some of the schools and the allegation that this has been caused by corruption of administrators pocketing the money allocated for building earthquake resistant structures. This has been commented on as uncommmom openness for Chinese leadership to allow ... and today itis reprted that the government plans to impose "a firm hand on quake related crime, from theft and robbery to speculation and rumor-mongering"...
Foreign media are being welcomed but it is hoped their reports will be positive ... and there is certainly much positive to report ...
There's been almost 26 billion yuan donated all told to thispoint (divide by 7.2 - close to $4 billion US) ... they'll need it ... it's 5 towns with major damage and several more affected ... and all transporttion systems also impacted ... all roads leading to Wenchuan, one of the towns levelled, were destroyed ... railways were also destroyed and those remaining were jammed with people trying to get there to find family, though they were asked not to go ... an additional $7 billion US was allocated today by the Chinese government ...
Our school held a fundraising, which was interesting. Tthe Chinese staff, who earn 6000 yuan a month were informed that they _must_ donate 100 yuan each. They lined everybody up and recorded the names and amounts as it was dropped into boxes ... The government leaders were shown on TV doing the same thing only they were holding sealed envelopes ... mind you, there was something written on it, so perhaps their names and amounts would be known too ... they really don't seem to have the word privacy in their vocabulary ...
One of our teachers in the Canadian program organised a spagetti dinner fundraiser and brought in over 3000 yuan (approx. $450 Cdn)
There are potential public health issues - hepititis, the black plague and encephilitis have been mentiones- and there are still aftershocks down there in Sichuan ... one at level 6 today ... there have been 178 aftershocks, large and small, measured ... very frightening for the survivors ... and now, concern is being expressed about the treatment the survivors have been receiving. There are many amputations and post operative infections are a hazard ... also in caps today ANTIBIOTIC MEDICATION URGENLY NEEDED ... There is massive spraying of disinfectants ... Water has been tested from the beginning of relief operations ... springs, wells, etc. ... All are being reported safe ... Ditto for the nuclear reactor .... but Iwonder, b/c of the Chinese concept of face whether itwould be reported if there were a hazard ...
Eight pandas were moved to a zoo in Beijing ... their living quarters in the panda conservation project also damaged ... so tourists to the Olympics will now be able to see them ... their home territory is Sichuan Province, where the quakes happened .... and the US San Diego Zoo has joined in the panda rescue efforts ... several are missing ... Hong Kong and Taiwan have sent rescue teams ... this is being commented on as indicating and reinforcing Chinese unity ... China declaried a 3 day mourning period nationally one week after the quakes hit ...
At 2:28 pm on Monday May 5th - the moment in which the quake had hit - the country stopped for three minutes ... everyone stood with heads bowed. Everyone - the leaders, governmet offices, businesses, schools cars and trains - stopped everywhere, over the entire country .... very moving ... Iwas teary eyed when Ispoke to my students afterwards ... but they blew sirens! which I found disconcerting ... but it had a mournful sound, which I gather was the point ... All flags are at half mast and it was reported that this was the first time this has been done for ordinary citizens ...
Our students held candlelight vigils for each of the three nights ...
As for me, the images of people being rescued continue to be very distressing, as is the awareness that something so devestating can happen without warning ... one can't help but imagine what it would be like to be going about your daily life and then suddenly be buried under rocks and rubble ... but the relief of being whole and healthy is predominant.
Hug your loved ones.
Yes, you can use whatever communication I send you for whatever purpose you see fit.
Famous has a CD release party tonight ... well tomorrow night your time ... Saturday May 24th ... He's still at it, committed to the music ... wish I could be there.
I'm so happy to hear of the recognition you got at the Handy's ... what an exciting time for you ... all this world travel!! Hopefully our paths will cross somewhere soon.
Take care of yourself my friend, till we meet again ...
Pat
Back To List
May 24, 2008
Wow!
We saw Slim at the Pearl in Dallas last night and were blown away!
Absolutely the best live blues performance in a Dallas club since, well forever! We will never miss him again if he is within a 100 miles!
Dave and Nikki
Back To List
May 21, 2008
Congratulations and jolts of joy heading your way from across the wide ocean... It was a much needed boost for me to learn of your wonderful victory at the Handy's because, as I'm sure you know, we're in mourning here in China. When I head home this Summer,
I'm still hoping to catch up and get a revitalizing dose of you an your music, (somewhere between hugging my newest granddaughter, Skyler - and the three others - close to my heart and my return to teach here another year)
Got the Wheelman CD here, of course and am enjoying your voice on my Ipod... Hugs to Cliff!
Wow...so great!
Much love.
Patricia.
Back To List
May 15, 2008
G'dday Slim
Was mighty pleased to get the info about your awards from a fellow blues traveller who was also at your Auckland show. I enjoyed our chats at "smoke time" and hope you get a gig in the South Island next time you're in New Zealand. Congrats to you and The Workers. It was a memorable gig.
Cheers
Jetwax
Back To List
May 14, 2008
Congratulations Bill to you and The Workers for your two awards! You are truly deserving of them. Make sure you tell Cliff, Michael, and Ronnie Mac that I am so proud of them, and what an honor it is to be your friend. I will look forward to you all coming back to Wisconsin this September!
Don Keller
Madison,Wi
Back To List
May 14, 2008
Caught your act in Memphis ------- VERY impressive to say the least. Of all the acts we caught, you and Keb were the most impressive to me. Very genuine raw blues ... the way I think the blues should sound but are seldom played. Thanks so much for the great performance.
Don Peterson
AND look foward to seeing you again in Marquette Michigan later in August.
Back To List
May 13, 2008
Michael,
It has been a long time since we have written to Bill and the guys. Please pass on our congratulations to them for their winning ways at the BMA's. I am sorry we were not able to be there in person this year but we are looking forward to a reunion soon. We still have that lobster dinner in mind somewhere in Maine.
Thank you Dan Ober and Diana Downs.
Back To List
May 13, 2008
Hi Slim,
Please let me know when you are coming to England. My friend Pat (percy) Leggett and I are huge fans. I can sort you out a gig at my pub if you don't mind doing it for free. (only Joking) seriously we would love to see you playing live. The two albums i've got are brilliant.Real Music Best wishes for the future.
Malcolm Mills
The Black Bull
Donington
Spalding
Lincolnshire
Back To List
May 12, 2008
Amazing! I'm sure you don't recall, Slim, but we took a few classes together (Shakespeare with Prof. Gough?) at OSU back in 99 or so. I saw you with Fried Okra Jones around Stillwater every chance I had. I moved to St. Louis in 2001 (law school), and hadn't heard of your incredible accomplishments in the meantime. Congratulations on all of your success! I saw "Watermelon Slim" on the bill for the Beale Street Festival and thought "Can that be the Slim from Stillwater?" Sure enough. I also see you're coming to St. Louis in June. I will certainly be there, and I hope to get the chance to say hello.
Will Joyce
Back To List
May 9, 2008
Hey guys! Majorly huge sincere congrats to Slim, Cliff, RonnieMack and Cliff for the Album AND Band of the year awards at the Blues Music Awards!! I know y'all won't say it so I will - you guys deserve the awards and the applause.
It's been fun over the years, listening to you perform from the Busted Lift to Famous Dave's and all points in between, like WhiskeyBones a couple weeks ago. Solid sets that night, by the way!
Take care and I'll see y'all down the road sometime.
Greg - Minnesota
Back To List
May 9, 2008
Slim,
The official Ennis Texas Watermelon Slim Fan club want to congratulate you and the band on winning 2 Handy's this week. Texas Ray said you might get some of those teeth fixed that got knocked out by that Mississippi "So and So" but we don't think you should mess with your sound. We like when you say CD... " We got a brand new SHE DE just released "
Enjoy,
Ken Isom and Texas crowd
Back To List
May 9, 2008
Slim And Company,
CONGRATULATIONS! You didn't get them all, but you got the two "BIGGUNS" last night in Tunica. I had to move on down the line from the area so I didn't make it last night, but between seein' y'all in Clarksdale and again in Memphis last weekend it's been a great Spring so far! Good things come to those who wait, and by the Grace of God it's payin' off for y'all now! Good Luck In The Future And Stay Safe!
See You Soon,
Scott (West Asheville, NC)
Back To List
May 6, 2008
Hey Doctor ! Says the salt of the water, to the salt of the earth,
I 'll be there with you in spirit t'morrow ....all the best ,from your compadre'
that's coom parhd !...tkar care ...c'mon up this way some time ! will ya woncha ! Later Gate ...speaking of gate Gatewood also sends his best !
take care bro' ...see you 'round sometime ,Eh? ...from a tubthumper!
Back To List
April 26, 2008
hi slim and the workers, we were sorry to miss you in chicago on the 25th just could not get it to work out. we were all so disappointed. looking forward now to oxford michigan in june. come on june!! SLIM . I want to wish you a happy birthday, i read on one of your interviews that you were born in april. we can not wait until the new cd comes out so excited for all of you. saw an author talking about his new book about
the life of william shakespear "WILL IN THE WORLD" author steven greenblatt. he is an english professor. the interview was on cspan's book tv . i know you like SHAKESPEAR thought you would enjoy this book. the grandkids can not wait to see you live in june, they are still singing along with your music. kheagun is improving on his electric guitar, look out ronnie , and ross is learnign the harmonica,
"DON'T LOOK BACK BOYS CAUSE SOMETHING MIGHT BE GAINING ON YOU" ed is a truck driver and he is all over the us highways and is always on the look out for the honey wagon so if a new black volvo tractor gives you a blast on the horn its ed. wishing you safe journeys on all your traveling. your very best fans in In, and ohio the DOHMS ed,patti, jason, tracy, adam, ryan, kheagun, korbin and ross ps, the flask is sterling over pewter if you use it for a slide it might ware off silver, just thought you should know. found it at orvis the old fishing outfitters. hope you get to fish this summer. it is all we do all summer. have a little place ne of angola in.would love to have you up to fish if we c ould work out, or we could just give you the keys and you guys could find a little private time. bye for now best wishes to you all!
Back To List
April 25, 2008
Hello Slim....
I've played the hell out of your last two CD's and am THRILLED TO SEE YOU'VE GOT ANOTHER COMING OUT IN jUNE. i'VE ORDERED THE OTHERS YOU HAVE AVAILABLE NOW AND AM ANXIOUSLY WATCHING MY MAILBOX. tHE BLUES HAVE MOVED ME SINCE i GOT MY FIRST hOWLING wOLF CHESS aLBUM IN 1967...AND THE
FLOOD GATES OPENED. i LIVED IN cHICAGO FOR YEARS...AND THEN MOVED TO
mEMPHIS/nORTH mISSISSIPPI hILL cOUNTRY SO i'VE BEEN FORTUNATE TO
HEAR SOME AMAZING PLAYERS. wHEN i SAY YOUR WORK ASTONISHES ME i mEAN
IT AS THE HIGHEST COMPLIMENT POSSIBLE.
i AM CURIOUS ABOUT A COMBINED PROJECT i'VE HEARD RUMORED... YOU AND jIMBO mATHUS COLLABORATING( OR CONSPIRING?). i LOVED jIMBO'S kNOCKDOWN sOUTH cd... AND APPRECIATE WHAT HE AND oLGA DID FOR jESSIE mAE hEMPHILL (WHILE SHE WAS STILL HERE TO ENJOY THE TRIBUTE)...ANY INFO YOU COULD GIVE ME ON A COMBINED PROJECT WOULD BE APPRECIATED.
aND AS THE bEAR (AND hENRY) WOULD SAY...
"dON'T FORGET TO BOOGIE"
dONNA bURROWS-hITE
Back To List
April 20, 2008
*Bill,*
* *
*What a pleasure it was to be able to spend my first ever evening in Clarksdale with you and the band. We were the only two cats from Asheville, NC in the house at Ground Zero, and by God we let'em know it!
Good luck in Tunica in a couple of weeks...I know y'all will knock'em out!
You need to get back to WNC in the near future...drop me a note and I'll hook you up...there's a couple of new joints to play in now in Asheville.
The Seydel harps are the real deal...the low, low G could pass for chromatic work any day without the hassle of the slide! It's a shame you couldn't have hung around the rest of the weekend...what a blast! You would've really enjoyed drinkin' breakfast with me Sunday morning out at Stovall, but me and the "Mudman" thought about you! Be careful out there, and we'll see you down the line.
Your "Homeboy"...Scott (West Asheville, NC)*
Back To List
April 14, 2008
Slim,
Just wanted to take a minute to say how much my sweetheart Jill and I, and our friends Ellen and Raoul, enjoyed your April 11 show at Knuckleheads here in Kansas City. You guys play tighter than the nuts on a new tractor! And as a longtime recovering journalist myself, a very special thank you for honoring my request for "Newspaper Reporter." Your showmanship is most appreciated. Can't wait for the new CD. May the mojo be with you!
Chris Whitley
Back To List
April 11, 2008
Hello, Went to your show last night in Tulsa, the music was great, but I am voting for Obama and Dopey is a friend of mine.
Frank Gadberry
Back To List
April 10, 2008
Brethren absolutely enjoyed opening the show for yall last night in Hot Springs, AR. Yall are a class act for sure, and salt of the earth. You have made a lasting impression on us. It is such a pleasure to meet such genuinely nice people who also happen to be incredibly talented,
Sincerely Big Papa Binns.
P.S. please approve our friend request on myspace so we can add you to our top 10 list.
Back To List
April 5, 2008
Slim,
Looking forward to seeing you again this year at the Blues Music Awards. I just got an email from Joe at the Blues Foundation mentioning your golf outing on May 8th. Unfortunately, I'm not flying in to Memphis until Thursday afternoon. I actually have been looking for someone to golf with on Friday, May 9th and/or Saturday, May 10th so feel free to pass this on to anyone who might be interested. I was thinking of booking a time at Tunica for mid morning on the Friday.
Good luck at the awrds - I know I voted for you at least a couple of times.
See you there,
Kevin Herron
A Canadian fan since the 2005 Awards (including Blues Hall the next night)
Back To List
April 1, 2008
Saw you steal the show from Fabulous T-Birds in Lillehammer. (Told you so!) What a performance! You are the new rising King of the Blues!
Cheers! / PG aka Hot Dawg
PS. Hope ye like the Hot Dog Taylor record! DS.
Back To List
March 30, 2008
Hi Slim
Just wated to thank You and the workers once again for a magnificent live performance i Odense, Denmark the 27th of March 2008 at PostOne.
We are very happy that we drove 150 km (do not laugh - we are aware of US distances) to see Your band (as we missed You in Esbjerg the nigth before). A powerfull show and also a new blues attitude with blues songs about killing of buddist monks as a good renewal with actual blues'y problems !
Looking forward to see You next time in Denmark
Best wishes to You and Your band - Please carry one !!!
Susanne & Jens Strandgaard
Back To List
March 25, 2008
Hey there Blues Fans,
Here we are in Denmark, Copenhagen (Kobenhavn) to be exact, the capital, where we will play our 4th show in as many nights tonight in a club named MOJO. They will particularly like Froggie and the rest of my mojo hands, I bet!
What do you know about Denmark? It's not a country that gets in the news very often because it is a very peaceful, happy place, and that doesn't usually make news. Denmark is a little more than twice the total area of Massachusetts. It is listed at 16,639 square miles, not including the Faeroes Islands and Greenland, which are autonomous regions within the Danish Kingdom. That area is composed of three major pieces of land, which make up the approach to the Baltic Sea, and over 1400 islands, some inhabited. The Queen is the head of state, and has a little more actual authority than the English monarch, within a parliamentary democracy. About 5,475,000 people are Danish citizens.
We longhaul truckers look at the distances involved here as a hop skip and jump. Five hours-- maybe six if you have bad traffic-- takes you from one end of Denmark to the other. Economically, Denmark is listed (according to Wikipedia) as the sixth most prosperous nation, per capita, in the world!
We thought it would be cold here in March-- I brought three pairs of full-wool socks, plus a set of arctic long underwear. However, the temperature has rarely dropped far into the 20s at night, though the wind has been high generally. Nice right now, 39-40 degrees, and wind only a breeze today. Spring isn't here yet, but the end of winter is nigh. Parts of this country, which has a maximum elevation of only 560 feet (except for mountains in Greenland), remind the Workers of Oklahoma east of Tulsa, with much agriculture, including dairy cattle and pigs, across the coutryside everywhere you go.
If you read Hagar the Horrible in the comics section, you are laughing about a Dane, most likely. Danish Vikings, like Hagar is always doing, invaded and settled parts of England, France and Ireland.
So far, the Workers have played in Sonderborg, down by the German border in the south, Aalborg, up north by Sweden, and Syderup, over near the west coast. Danish crowds have been extremely appreciative, especially given that they can understand everything we say or sing, because English is universal, among people less than at least my age. Most Danes speak at least Danish and English, and many speak German in addition, as well as the other two Scandinavian languages. Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are all similar. Finnish, however (Finland is the most northerly-easterly nation in the Scandinavian peninsula) is significantly different from the other three.
Last night, in Syderup, we had a dual bill, full house natch, with Magic Slim and the Teardrops. Although we have been honored to have Slim come play with us in Lincoln and elsewhere, this is the first time that we have gotten to play with the Teardrops at THEIR gig. Standing Os and encores have been the order of the tour. We will be going back to Norway atv the end of the month, and thence to Barcelona. But we will be always remember the magnificent hospitality we have enjoyed here. Special thanks must go to Flemming, Jan and Birgit, who have arranged our itinerary here, and made sure we got there!
God bless Denmark, and Danes! Already we are looking forward to our next trip here! And we'll see y'all back in the US again soon,
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
March 25, 2008
Slim, You and the Workers were outstanding last Saturday night 3/15/08 at the Marietta, OH Festival. First time I've seen you in person and I really enjoyed talking to you before the show. I brought a musician friend with me who had not really listened to you much before and he said that you were the best slide guitarist he'd ever heard or seen.
What a great show you put on - can't wait until you come to Ohio again and I will bring more W Slim novices to the next show.
Frank
Back To List
March 21, 2008
hi slim and the wonderful workers, saw you at gillys dayton last friday, had a wonderful time. you guys were awsome as usual. my son jason and daughterinlaw tracy were with us. it was a combo bd and anniversary outing. thanks for the harp happy birthday solo its the best happy bd song i have ever had. i was the designated driver on the way back to nw ohio and we got into a sobriety check point. passed of coarse with flying colors but mentioned we were in town to see watermelon slim. no reaction, so we told them all about you. any thing to help out our boys in blue or black . thanks agin for all the fun can't wait till the new cd is out, the grandchildren can't either they love your music. they can
finally meet you in ft wayne in june.
patti dohm
Back To List
March 17, 2008
*Just thought I would write you and let you know that you and the workers rocked the joint Friday night at Gillys in Dayton,Ohio*
**
*we sure look forward to you coming back.*
*Jeff*
Back To List
March 15, 2008
Hi, I've just taken the time to read some of the blog about the time Watermelon Slim and the Workers appeared in Auckland New Zealand last year. This message therfore is probably dated somewhat. We (my wife and a friend from the South Island) travelled up from Wellington for this Blues Festival (3 nights of concerts). I had already purchased both CDs and was already a huge fan of Bill and his music/writing. Blues is by far my preferred genre (that word!) and I particularly seek out the less well known artists Not that Watermelon is less well known eh ? !
What surprised me at Auckland were the small audiences. That was a shame as along with Watermelon (and that alone well justified me travelling that far) there were two other superb international performers as well as the well known (to me anyway) New Zealand artists Midge Marsden Bullfrog Rata and Hammond Gamble and a band I had recently heard led by Darcy Perry. What a great time we had ! Hopefully Bill you were encouraged (by the enthusiasm of 'us few') to come back sometime - even if it's just the world class trout fishing that attracts you. (if you do you must try the South Island - dry fly and nymph - THE BEST !).
I'll be there (at the concert) if you do come back.
Looking foward to your June release!
Cheers
Geoff
(ps it was great to meet you and have the quick chat)
Back To List
March 14, 2008
Just wanted to say thanks for coming to Maryville, TN last night. After my band's rehearsal ended, my drummer & I came over and caught your show at Brackin's and really enjoyed you all. GREAT BAND! Here's wishing you all many safe journeys and hoping that you all will come back to Maryville soon!
David Yocom, Bass Guitar/Vocals
Smoke-n-Mirrors
Lost & Found
Dirty Pool
Back To List
March 11, 2008
Boozhoo Watermelon Slim and the Workers,
I really can't believe it has been over a month since you blew into town with that blizzard in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Our drive to get there was over an hour and we live about 35 minutes out - so in a sense it was the true blues who turned out on that snowy night on Feb 9, 2008. I just wanted to say that show was one of the most intense and don't mean to knock the spiritual but in a sense the spirit of blues made it into Billy's and didn't get let out until way after everyone made their way home and then some. We all enjoyed the gift you gave us - the performance and the show's level of intensity left everyone fueled for at least a week. You truly are a healer and the Workers are definitely co-conspirators in your particular brand of medicine. Dave and I felt the gift of the "Chief of the Blues" is deserving of your home (enjibaa - or where your spirit resides). The Chief is Ike Pelcher and he is Saginaw Chippewa from Mt. Pleasant. The postcard the image is dated from is 1954. Our family is humbled our gift is in such an honored place in your home.
I read the blog today and feel compelled to write before you head out "over the pond" to welcome the sun back in Denmark and Norway. We still plan on coming down to Memphis for the Beale Street Blues Festival in May and perhaps making our way to Tunica for the Blues Music Awards.
We will look for more blues runs as we consider what 2008 has in store for us...physically, emotionally, spiritually and acknowledge your health in our way of communicating with the powers and spirits that be. We know we are still doing, if we're still casting a shadow...so until the next gig - baa maa pii giiga waabimin (until we see one another again.)
In Respect - The Shananaquet's - Dave, Punkin, Paul, & Carly
The kids loved your show - your magik with the young people exists...Paul continues to play the harp you gave him.
Back To List
March 6, 2008
Hey Slim,
......to answer your questions. Yes and Yes... I ordered with your initials engraved on it, and it is Sterling. And that was my father in law that was keeping you on time to Juke Joint Woman. Hey is a Hoot!!! I am very happy that you are using the flack in many ways. 151 proof rum at 8:45 in the Morning. WOW!!! that is GREAT!! We will be in Dayton, OH to see you on the 14th, and can not wait. During break stop over and see us and I will buy a round of shots. Hey Have you ever tried Torguga Rum?? it is from the Cayman Islands. It rock. Not as hard as you 151 proof. I gotta tell you the full story of how we became Slim junkies, roadies,freeks, ect...
Here it goes. Last Fall my mother in law-Patti(you have meet her at skip's twice) was listening to car talk and heard trucking driving mama on it. Well, that opened up the can of worms so to speak. She looked you up on the web and ordered your CD's. Well she gave us the CD to listen to and to be honest with you, we were like who the heck is this GUY!!!???
Well, I started to listen to it and feel in love with "Oklahoma Blue" and Then "why they call me Watermelon Slim" ....Well the Boys (My Kids 14, 12 and 7) would get into the car and demand that I play.... call me watermelon slim!! I still think that have not figured out the "REAL" meaning behind the song! hahaha..and then song to song that would memorize them.
So... We saw you at Skip in Angola in October of 2007 and it was like WOW, and I have not listen to the Radio and or anyone else since then!!!! AND THAT SHOULD BE A HUGE HONOR, BECAUSE I AM A HUGH KENNEY CHESNEY FAN!!!!! COUNTRY AS WELL, and to be honest with you I could not even tell what song are playing on the radio. The Boys pretty much know every slim song. and my 7 year old has a voice from Hell!!! His favorite song is Red, White and Blues. And at the end when you say HEEEEEEEEEEEEERE with the Red, White and Bluuuues. My son can hit that note every time and hold it out as long as you do!!! My other son is taking guitar lesson and we have to burn a couple of song for him to take in and learn, as well. and NOW here my other son want a Bass guitar for his birthday, Thanks to Cliff for that one....
Well that is the story and We love you guys and Can not wait to see you on the 14th of March in Dayton.......AND.....Slim stay Healthy , Because We wanna see you on the 19th of June in Ft. Wayne In. at Ribfest. The Boys will be able to see you and I will be Great Birthday Gift for ME as well.
Take and I love to read about me in your blogs, it's FUN.
God Bless
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
February 21, 2008
Well, Blues Fans,
that's reassuring-- I already wrote up Notodden, and Billings, Montana too. I am going to put off Australia one more entry, and tell everybody (particularly our Canadian fans) thank you all so very much for voting for me and the Workers for all these awards we've been nominated for.
For those who didn't carefully check out the Home Page here at my website, we were named BB King International Artist at the Maple Awards in toronto! this is extremely prestigious, and when you look at who we were named instead of, it's even more a miracle to me.
Putting it in perspective: before there were anything like awards, W.C.
Handys or any of this stuff, the reward for a bluesman/woman was having a pocketful of money from the night's gig, a warm place to stay the night (even company occasionally), and the knowledge that you have another night's gig tomorrow. tell ya what, sometimes ANY job-- even this one that I do-- seems like just a job. But I am a blessed man, to have SOOO much inspiration, variety, and LOVE all around me while I do my job. YAAA-AYY!!
Portland, Maine, Piermont, New York, Knucklehead's in Kansas City (KCMO had a HUGE week at the IBC in Memphis. Knucklehead's won the KBA Award for best blues club 2007, and the KC band trampled Underfoot won the IBC band competition). We ran our @$$e$ off last year. 182 gigs, by my count, way more than 200 days over-the-road and in the air. It took a physical toll on me, and so I have been kind of resting, but we did a week's club gigs in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky last week, and next swing, March 11-15, it's Ohio and tennessee (will be checking in wih my fishing buddy Bill Russell, heh heh), including the Marietta Blues Fest. While hanging around Memphis for the IBC, I realized that more people told us they had seen us in Marietta (where my transmission gave up the ghost, lost another in Indianapolis-- damn Ford's been pretty reliable but for those), Kalamazoo, or Wheeling, West Virginia than any other places. Naturally, we sure hope to get back to those last two places as well!
My health, though, as some of you know, has not been the very best this year. I am not going to be doing as many gigs this year as in 2007. And I'm going to be playing a lot higher percentage of solo appearances, including a several-day trip to England in July, Yes, blokes, I'm finally coming back. I hope I get to see you folks from Birmingham again. About bloody time, I can hear some of you saying. Hear, hear!
So much more to relate, so few brain cells left to do it with. One little thing before I go: I understand I may have started a new fad at the Subiaco Academy, a Catholic boys' high school in Subiaco, Arkansas, at a Benedictine monastery. You boys be careful of that Monk Sauce, hear? Just 'cause I can drink it straight out of the bottle doesn't necessarily mean YOU can. It has been great spending some time playing for you Razorbacks. the Blue Collar Fest, at Mounain Home, and the Bayou, in Rogers, were really, really fun. too bad about the weather for the last scheduled night at the Bayou; I see we've got another date already. thank you, thank you! I will get out and fish for trout around Mountain Home one day. I really had no idea that there was world-class trout fishing in L'il Ol' Arkansas!
Enough for today, I'll be back at it tomorrow,
God Bless You,
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
February 21, 2008
Y'all have probably wondered if I would ever write again. Well, I was always intending to. First, I must say a general "thank you" to everyone who has come out and supported live music ,the blues, and Watermelon Slim and the Workers. Money's been tight, and yet we play to many full houses, and no deserted ones. Bravo to all you fans, the stars of the show!
Now, specifically, I must immediately thank tracy Dohm and family for this magnificent present, which, as you mentioned, I used for a slide that night in Grand Rapids. I used it the next two nights too, in toledo and in Louisville. It's now an integral part of my equipment, being both mojo hand and slide at the same time, as several of my slides are. Works to drink from too, of course (101 ways to use your mojo); at the moment it contains a small amount of 151 proof rum. I gotta ask two questions.
Is that really a sterling mark on the bottom edge? And were the initials "WS" already on the flask when you got it, or did you actually go to the length of having it engraved for me? God bless you folks, and keep those boys practicing (doesn't sound like any parental prressure is required!). I'm taking a sip right now, regardless that it is 8:45 in the morning, in y'all's honor!
Not for a moment to be outdone, I must also thank Dave, plus Punkin and the Shananaquet family, for the magnificent painting I now have placed in a place of honor on my wall. Who is the "Blue Indian"? At first, I thought Red Cloud, but then I went and found a pic of Red Cloud and it doesn't look at all like him.
How about New Zealand and Australia, I know you're all wondering. How about Norway? Well, we just had a BALL in all those places, and discovered (no surprise) yet again that these "furriners" sure know how to run bluesfests, just like Canada. Highlights are too many to mention, even if I could sit here all day and rack my brains. In New Zealand, I watched my guitarist, Ronnie Mac, jump-- twice!-- off the highest controlled-baseline (as opposed to mere bungee) jump in the world. You all know that New Zealand invented the bungee jump, don't you?? After bass player Cliff had bugged me enough about doing it (I really didn't want to spend the money, for several days, and I don't really like heights), yours truly plopped down the cash, donned the jump suit, and very, very carefully edged myself out on the platform 619 feet above the ground, as the attendant finished hooking me up to the baseline harness.
It works like this: you get hooked up, and then they have you lean forward, , toes over the edge of the platform, and the mechanism pulls you out over space. the attendant says, "count to three, and let go of the side poles", and when you do, the machine pulls you out and simultaneously drops you, and a video camera on a separate but connected line follows you down in the initial 30-foot drop. After you have been photographed dangling in space 590 feet above the ground, the machine drops you, and 11 seconds or so later you land on a platform with a target painted in the middle. Some people swing themselves around during the drop, and I saw one jumper almost miss the floor of the platform and hit the railing around it. But no harm done. For my part, I made a 10-score Mary Lou Retton landing, dead in the middle of the target, flat on both feet. Now, Cliff says he will never be talked into taking this plunge, but trust me, he will never hear the end of it, especially the next time we get to go play New Zealand.
Besides this excitement, I also got to go about half an hour out of Auckland and have a lovely lunch and "walkabout" (as they call going out int the outback, kind of the same thing as a Native American vision
quest) in green beautiful sheep country. I marveled at the natural fauna and flora-- the parrots were spectacular, as were the multitude of trees and flowers completely unfamiliar to me.
I am a fisherman, as anyone who has kept up with this blog knows. I had intended to do a LOt of fishing on my trip down under. But as things went, I only got on the water twice, and only for a morning's time each.
the first time was a disaster of sorts. two big fans took me out, and when we had been sitting in the middle of Auckland Harbor for awhile, getting no bites (we were hoping for snapper or kingfish), the lady who owned the boat decided we'd move. Aaargh, the boat wouldn't start! I felt so embarrassed for the lady (and her mother, a personal friend of BB King, who had decided to come for the ride) when she had to call the harbor patrol and have us towed in to the dock. Back there, the disaster compunded when the owner realized that she had filled the tank with diesel fuel instead of gasoline! Only the fact that gasoline is heavier than diesel kept the engine from being damaged. I felt so sorry for the lady (luckily for her, she was good friends with the harbormaster, who came along on our towboat).
However, the next time I went out with New Zealand blues band leader Darcy Perry and his harp player, and although we couldn't stay too long, I did at least get hooked up. I thought it was the bottom, but Darcy said, "nope, that's a ray. He's going to do his best to stay on the bottom right where he is." It was a magnificent fight, as the ray (it turned out to be an eagle ray of some 20-25 pounds) was still taking line off my reel 10 minutes after the hooking. there was no horsing this fish. But eventually, I got him to the side of the boat, where we saw that he was securely, but not deeply, hooked, Darcy cut the line, and the ray, who had plenty of strength left, plunged for the bottom. Later, that night, I played one of my several impromptu gigs at a local club with the Darcy Perry Band. the others had been at an Irish pub I stumbled into (well, walked. One night out of the three I played there I kind of stumbled out. Damn Kiwis-- and Irishmen who were also
there-- plied me with strong drink and had me playing at 3:30 in the morning). I played with an acoustic duo-- "(Somebody) and All the Daves"
(there was only one Dave) who could keep time in a hurricane. Great stuff!
Darcy and his band, Eric Lindell and HIS Louisiana-based band (whom I met later in Australia, more on that to follow), and I are very big on the idea of a Blues FISHING Cruise!
I have also spoken to Super Chikan (James Johnson) and other bluespeople I know, and we sure would like to get something of ths nature going.
Obviously, we won't have the pockets to hire something like the MS Westerdam, but I just think it would be as cool as a moose in February in Saskatchewan to take a couple of bands, several other artists to play with them, and a couple of hundred rabid blues AND fishing enthusiasts out for 2-3 days in, say, the Gulf of Mexico. I'm open to ideas, including funding schemes, about this.
My special thanks, first, to Brian, the promoter of our visit to Auckland and Wellington. Without his resourcefulness, I literally could not have played the tour, because I was seriously, SERIOUSLY spinally misaligned. But Brian knew a good chiropractor, and less than 24 hours after getting to the island, I had been snapped, crackled and popped (I had at least five vertebra misaligned, cervical, thoracic and lumbar). After one trip to him, I could bend over and tie my shoes again. After a repeat visit, I felt good enough to jump off the Sky tower! My thanks also to Ronny, a lovely lady who works for Air New Zealand, and who put in countless hours of volunteeer time making sure that logistics for all the artists arriving and leaving were properly taken care of. Loved the book, dear! When you see ths, would you please give me a shout? I lost your email, or I'd have been in touch long before now.
I'm going to take a break, and then I will plough on through Australia.
Notodden will be huge, and so even though we did that (and Fredericton,
too) before Down Under, I've got so much catching up to do that it is a daunting task, and I promise you all I'm going to work hard to catch up.
If I should fail to personally thank anyone that truly deserves acknowledgement, I apologize; if I had been less lazy about this, I'd be better able to give it to y'all in some kind of decent order.
God Bless You All, from the Workers, and
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
February 11, 2008
My Husband and I (along with his family) decided while Slim and the workers were in our area for a while, we would like to take in a COUPLE of shows. SO WE DID!!!! We saw his in Angola, In. and Grand Rapids, MI.
as well. The Band and Slim just amaze me beyond belief. WOW.... is all I know how to say after you see them preform. We gave slim a flask, but he thought it would be a great slide. He used it for Devil's Cadillac.
AWESOME. I even Got my father in law to dance with me and take part of juke joint woman chorus line. I have to say the hands down or hands up ......I AM THE BIGGEST FAN of Slim and the Worker. My days does not start till I have Youtubed them and watch a couple of videos and then continuing to listen to them in the cd player for the rest of the day.
THANK GOD, I am my own boss. I can not wait till June 20th to see them in Ft Wayne, In. at the Ribfest. It will be 2 days before my birthday and I can think of a better place to be, but Rocking with them!!!! WE LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
February 8, 2008
WOW!!!!!
What a Great Show in Angola!!! You ALL rocked!! You Guys Sounded Fresh and stunning!! Had a great time dancing and scratching Slim's back of course:) We are traveling to Grand Rapids on Saturday to see you play there as well!! You Guys ROCK!! Love the new songs and I will be one of the first fans to buy.
See you Saturday
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
February 4, 2008
Hey Roadies,
It is Monday the 4th of February and Slim and the worker will be playing in my area in 2 Days!!!!!! I am soooooooo excited to see them. All of my family will be coming in for every to see them play at Skip's. My Boys who are 13, 11 and 7 are mighty mad at Mom and Dad . They want to see the band play. my youngest in a great blues singer at the ripe age of 7. He loves the red, white and Blues song.
Have a safe trip and See you on Wednesday
Tracy from Indiana
Back To List
January 23, 2008
Hey Slim,
Congratulations on your win at The Maple Blues Awards! It was well deserved. Hopefully it's a good omen for Mississippi in May and that little bag of mojo you picked up at the crossroads will work it's magic.
Can't wait for the new CD & DVD to come out later this year. Looking forward to seeing you and The Workers up here in the Big Smoke in June.
I met you and caught your show in Hamilton last July. All I can say is that you are one cool dude and without a doubt you are the "real deal".
Richard
Toronto, Ontario
Back To List
January 22, 2008
Just wanted to congratulate you guys for your win last night for the MapleBlues BBKing International award.....
LOOKS GOOD ON YA'S. You deserve it...congrats.
Moe
Back To List
January 20, 2008
Hi Slim - My wife and I saw you last night, Jan 19 2008, in Mountain Home, AR and we wanted to say what a pleasure it was to hear you in person. We love your CD's and have introduced you to family and friends. You might remember me because I said I was the one that "laid out the crooked roads in Arkansas!".
Dana and Cindy Mountain Home, Arkansas
Back To List
January 19, 2008
Just listen to the opening solo riff of "*/Newspaper Reporter/*" on Slim's "*Wheel Man*" CD and you realize how much Blues music is about tension and resolution. Any harp player or harp music lover gets gets to hear to the finest example of blues harp tension and resolution I've ever heard in my thirty years of harp playing. Each time I hear the song, I repeat the opening riff portion several times, and if I happen to be in the car, I can only imagine what drivers around me must think as they observe my face consternation's reacting to each note, followed by another wail of tension and at last, working on down to the final /low /note of resolution, a complete octave lower. Talk about creating an emotional roller coaster! NOW THIS IS SOME GREAT HARP PLAYING SLIM.
I'll see you in Grand Rapids, MI in a few weeks.
Back To List
January 17, 2008
Howdy Mr SLIM!! HAPPY NEW YEAR !! and CONGRATS! To you and the Worker's from Harrison Hot Springs !!! Yup! Rusty Harper here!!!! Heehaw!! what a blast I had last year chasing the band from here to Vancouver then to Edmonton!! Hope you make it back this year I've spoke with quite a few people here in Harrison who are wishing the same!! Hi also to Michael,Mack,and of course Cliff-man That skunks cold nose touched my toes!!!
Cheers again Gang,
Rusty&Yvonne
Back To List
January 2, 2008
Happy New Year, Mr. Slim! Congrats to you and the Workers for drivin' it home with The Wheelman! How sweet it is to see all of the praise and love from the fans on the Slim blog. And it looks like you cracked open another 6 pack of Blues Music Award nominations, along with all of your other blues acclaim! I'm holding good thoughts that 2008 will be "THE YEAR OF THE WATERMELON" as far as the BMA "Handy" awards go. (After all, Charlie Musselwhite and John Lee Hooker Jr. didn't make the nominee list this year!) Your Colorado fans will be "caucusing," Iowa-style, for you this May.
I hope all is well with you and the family, Mike, Cliff, Ronnie, Ike, and the crew. Drop me a line when y'all pass through Colorado again; we suffering the low down Watermelon withdrawals out here.
- Craig
Back To List
December 30, 2007
Hi Slim,
Congratulations on six nominations again this year! The girls and I had a blast with you in Davenport last month doing the "back scratch" I got the e-mail that you're playing in KC on New Years Eve-evidently, I must go and see you, Mike, Cliff and Ronnie on my way down to Pittsburg, KS.
Did you have your surgery yet? It doesn't appear the schedule has allowed it yet, but if it has I hope to see you feeling well. Take care and I can't wait to see and hear you guys!
Say hi to Michael McClune for me...
Take care,
Lori
IH Mississippi Valley Blues Festival Publicist
Back To List
December 22, 2007
my family and i want to wish slim, michael, ronnie and cliff a very merry christmas and a happy safe new year. we love your music and can't wait to see you at skips in angola indiana in feb. hope you enjoy your time at home with your families you work so hard all year and we appriciate it believe me.
patti
Back To List
December 13, 2007
Hey Wheel Man,
Congratulations for the six nominee's for The Wheel Man! You are truly deserving of them. I want to wish you and The Workers and your families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Your Buddy in Wisconsin,
Don
Back To List
December 9, 2007
hey slim
apparently you and i exchanged pleasantries on a certain political forum. sure would like to see you and the workers on the west coast some day. decided to come and czech out your website. just now in the process of downloading the free song. (blue freightliner). it's slow going at 56.6 kbps (37 minutes remaining).
hope you're well from that dentist thing
"comrade N"
Back To List
December 7, 2007
Congrats!! I just saw Amazon.com Top Ten Blues CDS of 2007. Number Two!!
I hope your Holidays are great. Vickie says "hey". Memphis in May!
Back To List
December 2, 2007
Slim,Michael,Cliff,Ronnie,et al,
Take a holiday break guys. You all deserve it after the great shows and tour you had. Luckily I got to catch the show in Michigan a couple of times. Knocked my socks off it did.
Hope to see you again in Michigan in February.
Bluesman Paul
Back To List
November 25, 2007
Slim-Sure was a treat seeing you and the Workers last week in Cambridge. Some of the young guys we dragged along were a little unsure about the Blues...Well my friend you did an fine job of showing them that the Blues is Alright. You now have some fans playing your CDs on campus in Amherst. Great show, you gotta be the hardest workin' man in show biz....
your old friend Roy
Back To List
November 21, 2007
Howdy Slim and The Workers,
Hope you are well and having a great time playing lately! We really appreciated your hospitality at Famous Dave's in Minneapolis and I had a great time dancing with you and groovin to the tunes! I love the new cd and listen to it often. We are in Arkansas this week visiting family for Turkey Day and will be out in Rogers at the Bayou to see you again on Friday. Kevin and I are bringing my mom and her husband (Dawn and Jerry) along. They love the blues too and are looking forward to seeing y'all. I hope to say Hey and have another dance with you. I will always be glad to scratch your back! Take care and see you soon.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all,
Heather & Kevin
--
Be with wonderment!
Back To List
November 13, 2007
*Report of Veterans' Day Activities from Watermelon Slim*
I played Veterans' Day in Rochester, Minnesota-- not in Milwaukee, as I had hoped, but there will be other opportunities-- at the Whiskey Bones Roadhouse, for a sparse Sunday night crowd. People apologized for the slight turnout, but the Vikings had lost to the Packers 34-0, and people were staying home licking their wounds.
Before playing the first number of the evening, I announced that it was Veterans' Day, and Veterans' Day gives me the blues. I told 'em there was a very important thing we needed to do, asked that everyone please remove their hats, "and for those of us who know the meaning of the words, Present Arms". After "taps" and Order Arms, I merely said, "for our fallen heroes. My brothers and sisters." One solemnity that seems to offend no one is to honor the dead. I've been playing "taps" regularly at gigs in America and Canada since Canada lost its first combat casualty since Korea back in March of 2006. they've since lost over 70 in Afghanistan...
Later in the gig, before my song "Black Water" (listen to track 3 on my latest CD, /the Wheel Man/), I asked the question I've been asking audiences nationwide for the last year. Declaring the question's particular relevance on Veterans' Day, I asked the crowd why, if our nation has 2.73 or so billion dollars per week to spend on a war that's killed and wounded tens of thousands and has created hundreds of thousands more combat veterans in Iraq and Afghanistan, why don't we have 2.73 billion a week to spend on the restoration and rehabilitation of the Gulf Coast of the United States of America?
I shall continue to ask this in your name, my brothers and sisters of the current war. God bless us all, Happy thanksgiving,
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
November 13, 2007
Slim and the Workers played a great show in Eau Claire Wisconsin on Nov. 9th. I want to Thank them for making our group of Bluesfesters wanting more. Slim is a showman and made 1 of our group feel very special. Kaye is still all giddy after Slim's performance. I hear you were still talking about it when you played Bev's in Superior on Saturday night. We all can't wait till you get the area again. Mike, Ronnie and Cliff are one of my favorite bands. You keep Slim working.
Thank you
Mark
Back To List
November 11, 2007
From one 'Slim' to another- you ARE the business!
You are the REAL thing!
Just purchased all of your CD's - You make the hairs on my neck stand on end. When are you coming over to the UK?
Best wishes
The 'Big Slim'
Back To List
November 5, 2007
Dear Slim and The Workers,
I know why you guys are called the Workers.Boy,do you guys give 100%!!Slim,thanks for sitting in front of me while I opened the show for you on October 27th,2007!! That meant a lot to me,more than you will know.I really enjoyed your show.I have opened for many of the greats in blues at The Stanhope House but your show was the most memorable.I hope we can meet again and play some Dobro or Nationals together.I wish you great sucess,
Best Wishes,
Mike Esposito
Back To List
October 29, 2007
Last night as I was driving into the city, to Barnes&Noble before they closed, I was listening to Dan Aykroyd and the house of blues. He played Devil's Cadillac by Watermelon Slim & The Workers. It was almost a full moon and it seemed all the stars were out with only wisps of clouds occasionally passing over the moon. Since it was Sunday night the roads were practically deserted...even in the city. Slim's song just seemed to complete the scene, my mood, and just that moment in time last night as I was driving. The guitar in that song was just mesmerizing.
It's something I won't soon forget.
Thanks to Watermelon Slim & The Workers for the laid-back tune, and thanks to Dan Aykroyd for playing it.
Michelle - Michigan
Back To List
October 26, 2007
Hey Gang,
My Family saw you play in Skips Lounge in Angola Indiana In October. Since then my children (3 boys) have been listening to you and my 11 year old son especially loves your music, he just starts shaking in his seat. He now walks around the house singing your songs. What a riot!!!! What a great time we had watching your show and I took tons on photographs of Slim. Hopefully I could get them on your website!!!
God Bless
Tracy Dohm
Back To List
October 26, 2007
Yo brother Bill,
Sending a heartfelt and sincere request you find your way to the D.C.
area. I missed the Richmond gig as I wasn't dialed into the tour info on the website and I tried to make Moondog's and am wishing and a hoping to make the West Virginia date, but it's a tough nut to travel when you are a single Dad. Keep the rubber down and the blues real. Look out for those oversized dumpsters on the road of life.
Yours in concrete,
Joe in Southern Maryland
Back To List
October 25, 2007
Hey Slim -
Me, Tink, Bubba, 'Brook, Rich & Joe needed to thank you for one of the all-time blues club experiences the other night at the Turning Point.
Now, we might not have "seen them all", but we sure have seen many big-time blues players and we do know a little bit about the blues.
We agreed to a man that your show the other night was up there with the best. Seriously. Everything about it was very special, including the preview of your new stuff (like Dad in the Distance). I doubt fans at many of your shows will have the chance we did to hang with you and your talented band. Those who do will no doubt come away with the same feeling we did - you guys are very serious players and good folk. It made the weeknight trip to Piermont, NY very well worth it. (And big-time thanks to the owner of the Turning Point for doing what he needed to do to get you guys there & keep his place going.)
Back To List
October 20, 2007
Had a chance to see Slim play in person, and WOW was it great. First time blue listener. My mother in Law..Patti recently had her hip replaced and this was a celebration for her 6 weeks later. All of her boys(3) came to the show with her. 2 from Toledo and 1 from Auburn Indiana. WOW we all loved the show at Skip's.
Man can SLIM sing. I have found a new love for music. WATERMELON SLIM AND THE WORKERS. We were very impressed with how personable all of the band members were. GREAT PEOPLE.
Back To List
October 11, 2007
Great reviews from the folks down under. We are spending our 10th wedding anniversary on the North Shore and we'll be wrapping up our week by stopping by Bev's Juke Joint on Nov 10TH to enjoy your fine music.
Can't wait.
See you then
Vickie and Dan Sheehan
Back To List
October 9, 2007
Hi Slim.
I am an uber fan of yours and your fantastic band, the Workers. I picked up a cd a few months ago and it gets almost daily play! I am coming out to see you at Famous Dave's in Minneapolis this Thursday night and I can hardly wait. I am from the south as well. I was born in Tulsa and raised in Fayetteville, Ar. I saw on your site that you played the King Biscuit Blues Festival. I also see that you often dance with the ladies! I am so hoping to get a spin with you too!
I am starting fresh at the tender young age of 41 and your bio is very inspiring. I earned my masters degree well into my 30's and tho I have enjoyed working with mentally ill folks as a counselor, I am ready for a change. I love music and singing, writing and other creative pursuits.
I am told I have a great voice and really want to try and get to some jams here in Mpls to try it out. I also taught myself how to play bass guitar and am learning drums now. Percussion seems to be my gig. I feel like I am beginning my life really and your music is a big part of what keeps me taking steps to be the person I am meant to be.
Just wanted you to know how much you and your music are loved here in the great white north (Land of the Bland I say, but nice enough folks.
I do miss my roots tho down home in the hills.) I'll see you there and will be wearing my cowgirl hat, singing and dancing along, and will give you the high praise you so deserve--a big holler and yeehawwww! Be well!
Your newest fan,
Heather Martin
--
Be with wonderment!
Back To List
October 9, 2007
Hi from Narooma, just wanted to thank the guys for a great time and gig in Narooma....hope to see them back next year....love to them all from all at La Salle Motel....and Slim I did put in a good word for you but no need we all loved the show...we want you back.......
Rhonda xx
Back To List
October 5, 2007
Dear Chris Wick
Would luv it if you could pass this image onto Watermelon Slim I'm the one in the red shirt, I have a gallery in Mogo NSW Australia where I sell RAW ART & BLUES MUSIC.
My gallery is just up the road from Narooma where we watched the AMAZING.... THE FANTASTIC MR SLIM do his thing ......... Took me ta heaven and back luv the man!!!!!!
I have been selling his CD's at my gallery since last year after seeing a little video on UTUBE, sold many since & quite a few since the festival many people have been turned on by his charismatic charm
I put on an exhibition of portraits by j.d.Sipe a bass player with the Hoodoo's from Albuquerque New Mexico which included a portrait of Watermelon Slim we met him and Cliff Belcher at the signing tent after their gig on Sat he may remember me and my brother in law Tav the two hyped up boys totally turned on by the MAN
We told him he was on the wall between two other heroes Skip James and Robert Pete Williams (3 Kings together) he seemed impressed at the time
Anyway would luv it if you could pass this on ...... To top it off I caught his songs with the Holmes Brothers on Sunday night he was in another zone and took us all with him ........... Watermelon Slim you are etched on my heart forever THANKS MATE!!!!!!!!
Kind regards
Steve Fox
Back To List
October 4, 2007
My vote for best band at Australia's Great Southern Blues & Rockabilly Festival (28 - 30 September 2007) goes to Watermelon Slim and the boys!
I was drawn in by the first performance and blown away by the second gig (in the afternoon no less). Loud, authentic and moving - and what showmanship. T-shirt one day, three piece suit with cufflinks the next no less.
To top it off, bought the new The Wheel Man CD and had it autographed by the band. Slim took the time to fill me in on their first trip to Australia and mingled in the crowd. I happened to mention that the band is as good as Little Charlie & the Nightcats, which was accepted as one of the highest forms of praise.
Been playing the CD loudly all this week and I think it is great, particularly the opening three tracks. Some of the strongest, tightest playing you could ever hope for, and a wide range of styles. I'll be off to get hold of another album by the band in the near future.
Make sure the band is on the Festival's program for next year and do at least a couple of gigs in Sydney, including The Basement. I'll bring the many other converts along ..............
Best wishes and thanks a million.
David Anderson
Sydney Australia
Back To List
October 3, 2007
Hi there,
just a quick note to let you all know that Bill and the Workers were fantastic here, and please let them know that we want them to come back when they can. They now have thousands of fans here.
Best wishes
Dave Allen
Back To List
October 3, 2007
Saw the shows at the Narooma Blues festival, very tight work. Was also good to catch up for a few cans and "Smokes" with Ronnie after the gig on Sunday. Hope the flight home was ok, and also hope to catch you back in Australia sometime soon. Tell your booker to get you a Sydney Gig next time!!!!
*Paul*
Back To List
October 2, 2007
*Caught Watermelon Slim & The Workers at The Great Southern Blues & Rockabilly Festival in Narooma, NSW, Australia on September 29 & 30.*
**
*Slim & the band, take another bow. Both sets were absolutely fantastic.
A genuine repoire with the crowd, guys, and we want to see you back again real soon!*
**
*Hope you managed to get that spot of fishing in down there, and yes...
that really was a cow's ass hangin' from the roof of the tent!*
**
*(That cow got well n truly milked on the weekend) ;-)*
**
*Cheers & best wishes*
*Jimsintoblues*
**
Back To List
September 24, 2007
Hello from middle earth...
I travelled form the central north island Taupo, to Auckland, it a four hour drive, never heard of this guy before went to mainly see the support band, Midge Marsden and Bullfrog Rata.
Well what a shock... watermellon slim & the band were great, I am so glad i went along...
After the show, he was avialable to sign Cd's I was so impressedby his talent,.. I purchased one, happy to share it with my friends who i know will be impressed.
We would love to have him here to tour the country and at the same time enjoy a good holiday with some of the best ever fishing in the world and awesome kiwi hospiatily... more than happy to help out here if required.
Any way was so impressed ,I looked you up over the net and wanted to leave a comment ,positive feed back
Sure hope he makes it back down under, and here to middle earth (Taupo) New Zealand.
Regards Karen
Back To List
September 23, 2007
I just caught Slim and the Workers at the Opera House in Wellington, New Zealand. You gentlemen are the real deal - you blew the Mighty Flyers away
Back To List
September 23, 2007
Hey, we came across Watermelon Slim in a small Pub in Auckland early hours of Sunday morning (23 sept), we heard this awesome music as we were walking back to our hotel after being in a not so good bar and decided to go in and wished we had come along earlier. Watermelon Slim - we just thought you were great and it just finished off our evening nicely. It was a nice surprise and the music was just great.
Hope you come back to New Zealand again as we would love to see you in concert. If we had only known early
Cheers
Sheryl
Back To List
September 22, 2007
Hiya Slim! The whole gang here at the Detroit Blues Society is excited about the show on October 19th at Memphis Smoke in Royal Oak. We are going to have some big fun that night. Feel free to contact me at sallen8961@aol.com if you have any questions or concerns.
Steve Allen
Detroit Blues Society
Back To List
September 14, 2007
Just came through the door at home from your one of your Fredericton shows.. Brilliant!
Working with the locals and other from the festival was incredible. I know it's the blues, but I am still grinning. Thanks for a wonderful show.
*/ /*
*Don Whitty***
*Fredericton, NB Canada*
Back To List
September 14, 2007
Just as short note to say hey from Iowa. I was surfin on the tube and heard you sing dark genius. I googled you and read your bio and and your and inspiration, I can relate... thankyou. Im fixin to buy you CD's. I was a cowboy in Wyoming when Bush called me back into the Army for Desert Storm (Medic, 1st Infantry Division)in 1990 after 3 years active duty and ended up back here in Iowa where I grew up. I inteneded to get back to cowboying which I Love with all my heart, but the good Lord had other plans. So Im raising these 2 kids best we can and I pick alittle flat top and when I can. I try to write a bit too. I got the calf pen in the barn set up with a drum set, amps and guitars, gut bucket, dulcimer, fiddle, all kinds a shit. All junk, but work just fine. Had the neighbor kids over last night for an hour or two and we made a hell ofa racket!
The damn horse nearly tore off the door trying to get their heads _/in/_ to watch. My oldest Daughter finally opened the top door so they could watch. Strange huh! Its suprised me as much noise as we made. It was quite a picture! One kid shows potential on the drums. Good to hear your a driver. Truckers for a few generations on both sides of my family. Im getting Uncle Mike Which ever CD has Blue Freightliner.
Ill let you go. Hope you get to Iowa some time and we will see you.
Thanks you so much for sharing your gift with us.
Take care
Kelly Mishak
Alta Vista, Iowa
Back To List
September 9, 2007
Watermelon:
You and the Workers turned in a great set last night at the Bull Durham Blues Festival, it was great to hear some of the material off the new CD - live!!!! Wheel Man , Blackwater etc.
Be sure to come back to the Raleigh/Durham area soon - we would love to catch a full 2-3 hours in a local club with the Workers.
Enjoy the fishing,err , I mean tour down under this month. And we'll look forward to some new material maybe next year :)
Best,
JB Zydeco
Raleigh NC
Back To List
September 2, 2007
*Just a note to tell you I really enjoyed your show in Peoria. You were fantastic! I heard a message similar to one I hear in a fellowship I belong to, very Spiritual. Thanks for sharing your talents with Peoria!
You were awesome.*
* *
** **
**
**RT Roling**
Back To List
September 2, 2007
Hey Slim & The Workers
I attended your amazing/wicked sessions at the Calgary Folk Music Festival Sat. Jly 28th and had you autograph my CD. I suggested I was from Edmonton and Cliff B. checked his Blackberry to give me the dates you were performing here. Unfortunately we had a previous engagement for that weekend and could not attend. However I remember saying at the time that Edmonton audiences/blues fans rock and judging from your letter to the Edmonton Journal you had an amazing experience. I'm so glad you had a good time in Canada and hope you do come back soon!!! I'm playing your CD often and telling friends about the group. Thank you so much for coming to Canada and treating us to your amazing performance.
Wendy Z.
Edmonton, AB Canada
Back To List
August 31, 2007
Hi Slim, I was at the Edmonton Blues festival, yourself and band were flawless and tight, I had the chance to see you in St Louis in April at BB's, I knew from that moment I would have to see you again, when the line up became public in May I couldn't believe it
Your military acknowledgement was very touching and professional - well done
Your fan response in person and in the Edmonton Sun newspaper was also well accepted and very professional. I hope you and band can make it back up this way, say for a week long stint at the Blues on White blues bar, you would pack them in every night
Thanks for a great show
"
Brian Beaupre
Edmonton
Back To List
August 31, 2007
Hey Slim! Hey guys! My son and I were fortunate enough to experience you and the Workers in action at the Edmonton Labbatts Blues Festival this past weekend. Wow!! what a weekend- your mojo did the trick and the good weather held , for the most part and what a diverse range of blues to enjoy! Your performance was our first exposure to your music ( I'm embarassed to say) but we are converts now..My 17 yr.old picked up all your Cd's and you were kind enough to sign one for him. You were also good enough to pose for a picture with him. Thank you for that- he was quite excited . I would also like to say that I really enjoyed the part where you and Fiona Boyes joined forces. She is quite something, isn't she?
Lastly, I want to thank you , from the bottom of my heart for your acknowledgment and your tribute to our fallen troops in a war so far away. Personally, I found that lone harp so haunting. Your country has suffered far greater losses of young men and women and regardless of ones' politics and opinions of that war (for or against), we must support our troops who are fighting the fight and dying for their respective country. They do need our support.
Sorry, I've digressed- I hope that you and the Workers had a good time and I hope you felt the crowds' appreciation and respect for your music. From my perspective, you had the place jumping. Hope to see
you real soon.
David & Nicholas --Edmonton
Back To List
August 30, 2007
LOVIN' that Watermelon Slim BLUES!
Just finished this years edition of the Edmonton Blues Festival...
many excellent bands, and mucho fine tunes, but none as COOOOOOL as Watermelon Slim! I love you Watermelon! I am now a HUGE Slim fan... I know I speak for thousands of other Edmonton Blues fans when I say Please come and grace us with your presence again Watermelon Slim!
PLEASE!
Robert Scott.
Back To List
August 30, 2007
Wow, Slim,
You're on a roll, keeping up with your blog this way (yeah, I know, you wanted to say that yerselves...)?!! Well, here ya go, Memphis and Edmonton, Alberta. We highballed down to Memphis the morning of August 17, and schmoozed around Beale Street eating barbecue and such until it was time to play at the Rum Boogie. We played for a full house Friday, and an elbow-to-elbow full house the next night. thanks to Kevin and all the Rum Boogie staff for making this a great fun time for me and the Workers! And also to Charlie Burch for getting us out to Printers' Alley Saturday night for after-hours fun! But especially to my colleagues Barbara Blue and James "Super Chikan" Johnson for turning an already great gig into a historic occasion for us all!
Got back home Sunday morning, and that week I had doctor
appointments. Arthritis is finally kicking up in me, especially in
the hips. the doc showed me pictures of all four joints, hips and
shoulders, and suffice it that I will never throw a baseball, or
even skip a rock, again. My body still looks like a 30-year-old's,
but it sure doesn't feel like it. Nonetheless, the MD says I can
still dance, still bowl, still run if I feel like it. And still,
most importantly, go the distances required to get out and be a part
of you all!
Edmonton was a BLASt! I could namedrop like crazy, with as many of
your favorite blues artists that I met there. But suffice it that I
managed to play with Fiona Boyes and her bassplayer, old Oregon
friend Dave Kahl (and then call her up to play with the Workers),
with Mitch Woods, in an action-packed after-show appearance (played
with 2 other fine piano players there too, one a festival
volunteer-- GOD BLESS tHE VOLUNtEERS, without who nothing would go
on!) at the Chateau Louis Hotel (thank yous to all the staff of the
hotel-- we were treated like kings!), and at least got to say hi to
Elvin Bishop, and especially, sit down finally, after 20 years, with
dear old friend and musical inspiration from my Oregon days, Lloyd
"Have Mercy" Jones, who led the perennially underrated Lloyd Jones
Struggle in a great set before Fiona came to the stage.
Besides that, with your help, blues fans, I was able to stop the
rain again, on Saturday. I'm sorry I had to leave, and couldn't do
anything about it for Sunday. Special praise for the Edmonton
entertainment press, which went the extra mile for us (nice to see a
city with two thriving daily papers AND two thriving weeklies!) And
last but not least, thank yous to the festival's co-promoters, Cam
and Carroll, who went to the length of putting my image on all the
teeshirts and other promotional,materials for this festival. Great
photo-editing job, besides everyhing else!
As always, special thanks to USA and Canadian customs authorities,
for the fine, efficient, cheerful job you have continued to do on
both sides of the border when we've showed up, and to my friends in
the American tSA, for whisking us quickly through all the airports
we've been flying in and out of lately! You are fulfilling your
missions in A-1 fashion!
Besides all that, I got to say that the state of local blues here in
OKC is thriving. I got to jam with Speedy West, Chris Hinson of the
Snakeshakers, Jesse Cahn, and a whole bunch of my musical buddies
here both the last two Sundays, at what is now (make a note of it)
ODIE'S Blues Saloon, on NW 10th Street here in OKC, and tuesday with
Bobbie Haynie, Doc Blue and friends at Doc's Biting Sow, down in
Bricktown. A blast with everybody! Viva la Oklahoma Blues Society,
and greeting from us Workers, wish we could be around more!
I'm killing time before a grueling drive to Peoria, Illinois
tomorrow morning. Among our gigs we'll be back in Roanoke, home of
the Hokies, where we hope we were able to help the grieving process
at Virginia tech a little less sad last time we played the Capitol
Restaurant; at XM Radio HQ in Washington DC, thank you Mr. Bill Wax,
of Bluesville, Channel 74; and tthe Harvest Festival, in
Fredericton, New Brunswick. It'll be great to see all of our
Maritimes friends again! then it's off to New Zealand and Australia
for the second half of the month. Fiona, Steve Clarke, Harper, Geoff
Acheson, and others have told me/cautioned me about what to watch
for Down Under, and one way or another, I'm going to be posting
photos of all the huge fish I catch! I have both trout fishing and
deep sea fishing trips planned in between gigs, and I only wish my
mother was still alive to see photos of me with 20-lb. German Brown
trout, 10-lb. rainbows, and 300-lb. (heck, 700 lb.!) sharks and tuna
caught by my own hand. this trip is the realization of a dream I
have had for 40 years or more, to go to the site of the wildest fish
remaining on the planet and try my luck!!
Okay, all, I gotta go do some errands and last minute stuff. I'll
send photos as soon as I catch 'em! Aaarrrr, mateys, what a blast it
will be to look up at the Southjern Cross. this will be my first
time south of the Equator.
Me and the Workers say
God Bless You All,
Watermelon Slim
P.S. Hey, Jason Ricci, how come your administrator will not post my
messages!? Miss you (H-U-U-U-G), glad you are with Intrepid, Delta
Groove, and working your A$$ off as usual!
P.P.S. Forgot to mention I got to meet, and swear undying fanship
for, no less than Stevie Winwood, who should need no explanation!
What a cool cat!
Back To List
August 29, 2007
Hi there, I met you in Edmonton at the Labatt Blues Fest. What a show you put on. You have many "new" fans up here in the north and we just loved your music. Too bad they sold out of CDs before you even played!
Thanks for the nice letter you wrote to the Edmonton Journal about the fest. Hope to see you back up here soon.
Liz Kingan
Back To List
August 29, 2007
Hello,
I just read your kind letter to the Edmonton Journal newspaper. I am glad that you enjoyed your time spent with us this past weekend. I assure you that we enjoyed having you here as well. I had the privilege of speaking to you and gained a better understanding as to why I am happiest when I'm listening to the blues. That may seem like an oxy-moron....but at 60 years old it makes perfect sense to me....and I suspect it will to you as well. I grew up loving and leaning towards this music before I knew it was called the blues. The romantic image that I have carried with me as to what a "classic bluesman" would be is best personified in you and your style and demeanor. Thanks for this gift.
You made a lot of friends up here that hope you get back to Alberta soon. I'm glad that you felt the love and respect we have for you and wish you continued success and happiness.
Best regards always,
Terry Robson
Back To List
August 28, 2007
Hi,
I just wanted to know that I've recently discovered your great blues records. My cousin travelled around Australia for a year not long ago, and he returned with some "Les Norton" novels by Robert G. Barrett. I finished another one of those novels just last week, entitled "Mystery Bay Blues". The book is set during the Narooma blues festival in Australia. When I checked out the website for this year's festival I saw that Watermelon Slim was going to be playing. Who's that, I wondered. A quick trip to iTunes and I had downloaded a copy of "The Wheel Man", and I knew who Watermelon Slim was.
Or so I thought. I read the bio on your website, and like all the great musicians who I like, I discovered the man has has a story to tell.
He's been around, that's for sure. Kind of reminds me of Billy Joe Shaver.
Anyway, I work nowadays as a driver for an out of hours medical firm, which is part of the NHS, here in the NE of Scotland. If someone calls for a doctor through the night, I hit the road and get the doctor to their door, anywhere in the NE. So I enjoyed "The Wheel Man". I think I'll keep a CD in the car, so if we get a hot one I can put it on and blast it through the speakers as I do the driving thing.
yours,
Kenny.
Back To List
August 28, 2007
Hey Slim just wanted to thank you for the wonderful show on Sat.I wanted to also thank you for the tribute to our troops;being a former infantry soldier myself it was appreciated.I also want to thank you,Nick Moss and your bass player(sorry I forgot your name) for the compassion you showed my friend Gary who buried his wife two days before.You are a unbelieveable player,but you and the guys in the room that night are even better people.God Bless to you and your'e crewand you were right about the rum,it did kick Bacardi's ass.
Kurt Ford.
Back To List
August 26, 2007
Hello, I saw you at the Edmonton Blues Festival yesterday. I enjoyed your show the most and hope you come our way again. You play a mean harp.
Bill
Back To List
August 22, 2007
Hey, Blues Fans,
I gotta turn you on to a book that one of you,'Mr. Van Willson, turned me onto. It was written by the son of one of my old antiwar-movement comrades, the late Dr. George Wald, so I was eager to read it anyway. But here, in a letter to the author, Elijah Wald, musician and musical historian, are some of my very personal reflections about the book, /_Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues_/ (HarperCollins, NYC, 2004) and about the blues, and about life, and my life. You want to read this book, because, at the bottom line, it's not just about the blues-- it's about YOU.
See you in Peoria, Maryville, Fredericton New Brunswick, Narooma New South Wales, and everywhere on the trail,
Watermelon Slim
*********************************************************
/Hello Elijah,/
//
/You probably will not remember me, for you were just a boy when we were introduced, by your father, God bless him. Dr. Wald was one of the triumvirate of Boston area professors of conscience that I marched with as a member of Viet Nam Veterans Against the War. Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky were the others. Striding along, our arms locked together from Central Square down to Kendall, or dodging tear gas at Boston University, I knew I was in solidarity with great and true comrades./ // /I was known as Bill Homans-- William P. Homans-- then. I still am, proudly (you undoubtedly would know of my dad, the civil-rights lawyer, of my name). But I am also known now as Watermelon Slim, bluesman from Oklahoma. One of my fans (he happened to be in Chicago) gave me /_Escaping the Delta_/, which I just finished the text of tonight (I'm working on the endnotes in my usual way, a little here, a little there, going to whatever catches my eye). My master's-thesis advisor got a laugh from me and the other professors at my defense when he smiled, "Bill, you know you're not really an academic." Nonetheless, with my modest little credentials, I know I am a lifelong colleague in my history department, at Oklahoma State. / // /What a great book. the only other text on the blues I ever read all the way through, cover to cover, was Paul Oliver's /_the Country Blues_ /(well, also, biographies of Muddy,/ /the Wolf, and Peetie Wheatstraw)// and that was many years ago, 4 decades, in fact. I hadn't even been to Vietnam yet. You might say that my reading that book was part of the white blues revival that you document with such insight in /_Escaping the Delta_/. Bravo, pard. You done good!/ // /I've spent a helluva lot more time learning my musical craft than reading about what others have done in it, learning it first hand, from Junior, and Big Walter, and James Cotton (whose nearly first words to me were, "get me some hash!", down at the old Speakeasy in Central Square-- I got some, of course...), and maybe more than anyone else over 40-plus years of learning all the music you talk about in /_EtD_/, Earrring George Mayweather. George was my fishing buddy, and my mentor, as he was to many of the blues players around Boston, whether he knew it or not (sometimes he knew it, and sometimes he was too drunk to give a shit). / // /So much of what you write about "realness" and all that resonates with me when I think about George. I was, by the time I met him in 1987 at the 1369 Club over in Inman Square, a better harp player than he was technically. And I had some pedigree; I'd been hanging out with "the Sunflower", Henry Vestine, who played with my band on the west coast when he wasn't touring with what was left of Canned Heat, and I'd gotten to play with Champion Jack Dupree in Paris. But more than anyone else, George showed me (he never really tried to tEACH anyone) how to do the whole show, how to get completely up close and personal with the crowd. God bless you, George, you're still Da Man to me. / // /And I grok so much about what you write, also, about musicians not just consciously trying to be "bluesmen" or "blues queens", but working in their trade. I'm now internationally known as a "bluesman". Have I stoked the image? Not much, but interviewers ask certain questions in certain ways. they are expecting a set of somethings; they are, more than the interviewee (usually), setting the agenda. I try to remind them that although the blues was, indeed, the first live music I ever heard sung, in my own house, back in 1954 when I was 5 (from a woman who sang snatches of John Lee Hooker and others while she was working), way before I ever knew what "the blues" even was, I also grew up with bluegrass, Country and Western, Doo-wop, the real R+B, Sinatra, Martin, and Crosby, jazz, Lawrence Welk, Mitch Miller and Perry Como, "folk" music-- ah, Harry Belafonte!-- and through it all, sacred music of various kinds, "white" and "black", in and out of the church. And I have sung it all, at some point, in the process of learning to become the musician I have become-- or am alleged to have become-- today. And I am my own, unique musician, and sing in my own voice. / // /You have debunked effectively all the stereotypes about how a "bluesman" should have come about, era by era (as though the path from minstrel shows and field hollers through W. C. Handy, Mamie Smith and Ma Rainey, Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell-- Robert Johnson-- Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, Big Mama thornton, Mississippi Fred, John Hammond Jr., Junior and James, the Rolling Stones, Hendrix and Joplin, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Ray and his brother Jimmy, all the way to Kim Wilson, Keb Mo, Super Chikan, Kenny Brown, Jimbo Mathus, Lightning Malcolm, Duane and Cecil Burnside, Miss Higgins, Dorothy Ellis, and, uh, Watermelon Slim, was not one great continuum!). I found great consolation in your final chapter, because as I have said to crowd after crowd in city after city, in country after country, in English mostly but also in French and Spanish, "it's not about me, it's about y'all who are listening to me. If it weren't for you, wouldn't be no "us". / // /I got to reassure you on one point: the white blues audience is no longer overwhelmingly male. Just looking at my crowds, and reading the people who write to my blog, allows me to confidently say that. Maybe they're the majority. But I've got the women, of all ages, coming out to hear my music. As many of them bring their men along as the other way round./ // /And what I play, mostly-- by every definition that you have suggested throughout /_EtD_/-- is the blues. Working-class music describing every day life for me and for all of us. I will reassure you further that the demographic of who is coming out to clubs and festivals (I can't say for sure about them that buys the records) is not as middle-class as all that. Many are. But many are not. I meet as many truckers, house painters, garbagemen and cooks, secretaries and housewives, soldiers, firemen and cops, unemployed people, as I do teachers, doctors, lawyers and businessmen. Overall, it's damn nice to read somebody who has given all this stuff, which I've been thinking about for all these years, so much thought./ // /You and I have a mutual friend and musical collaborator-- "compad", as he would put it in his South-Shore accent-- and that is Washtub Robbie Phillips.We've done hard labor together, played loads of gigs together, hollered at each other, hugged and kissed each other. He often has spoken of you, and not just because he knows I knew your dad, and he always holds you in the very highest regard-- I think he's even a little awed by you, and Robbie don't get awed by much. When you see him next, please give him a big hug from me, tell him I was thinking about him, and to please give me a shout!/ // /I hope we'll meet again sometime-- I think I will be back in Massachusetts for Christmas, visiting my daughter, from whom (and my wife) I have been separated for a few years now. Maybe one day we'll play the same crowd together! I hear you're hot./ // /God bless you, Elijah, until that day, from/ // /Bill Homans, Life Member VVAW,
aka/ // /Watermelon Slim/
Back To List
August 22, 2007
*Greetings from Cookeville, TN! We met you on the cruise in January '07, sent my brother to see you at Famous Dave's in Minnesota, then sat a couple tables away from you at the Blues Music Awards. We treasure our autographed cd's. You are top on our list!*
**
*Would love to have seen you in Chattanooga in June but couldn't make that date.*
**
*We checked your tour schedule and were like kids at Christmas to see that you will be in Maryville September 5! We can hardly wait! We're going to do a dry run to Brackens tomorrow just to be sure there will be no glitches.*
**
*Thanks for being you!*
**
*Lynn and Gerard *
Back To List
August 22, 2007
Good morning! I wanted to drop a line and tell all of you that this past weekend my wife and I were in Memphis TN, and caught Slim at the Rum Boogie. That was our first time to ever here him and it had to be one of the best shows I've ever seen and heard! I was looking at the upcoming schedule and saw no dates in Mississippi. My wife and I are from Jackson MS. We would love to see the tour come to our town or one very close to here, especially since our Delta is rich in Blues history.
I would love to be added to an emailing list if you have one. Loved the show! It was great!
Thanks
Marty May
Back To List
August 20, 2007
hi slim, the first time i heard your music was on npr radio show CAR TALK it was truck dirvin mama and i immediately ordered all of your cds on amazon and now have them all memorized. you are just what i have been looking for. i saw that you would be in kalamazoo in july but it was too short of notice to get off work. i work third shift in a hospital. i thought you would never be any closer that that to me, was so disappointed. my daught inlaw told me you would be a skips lounge 17th of october, i was elated, the only hitch is i will be just 6 weeks from getting a new hip joint and should not be in a crowd yet. i will be front row if i can possible do it though, just have to see you. i am bringing by onturage so i think i will be ok. your music has been such a balm to me during the rough time with my upcoming surgery, can't say enough about how it lifts me up. i have turned everyone on to you. my husbands loves your music too but he is a long haul trucker and will have already taken enought time off to help me so he won't be there. you and your band are the winning combination. the sound is sweet as candy can not wait to see and hear you in person, hope i can introduce my self to you would be such and honor. i feel i need to thank you personally for your music because i does something so personal to me. god be with you all on your travels be safe and happy your all deserve the best.
patti dohm
Back To List
August 20, 2007
*Hi blues fans,*
**
*Well, me and the Workers have been busy as hell. In the last six weeks, it's been Portland, Oregon to British Columbia to Ontario to Washington State back to BC to Alberta, home for 36 hours, then off to Notodden, Norway, back across the ocean to Connecticut, Bethlehem PA, and finally to Billings, Montana. *
**
*too much to write from beginning to end. By my count, 33 appearances in 42 days. I'll try to touch on some of the high points:*
**
*In Portland, got to schmooze with old friends Pinetop, Hubert, and James, and many more musical friends and colleagues. Besides that, my old buddy Jeff Humphries, now Jeff Humphries, D.D.S., and his wife, now not wife, Hannah, and old, old friends Ray Varner, co-impresario of the fabled Old taylor's Jam with the late Gavin (Rooster) Fox; no less than the owner of that storied dive, Dave Dingman; and my very, very old friend and closest political colleague, Michael P. Roche, formerly my co-coordinator in Massachusetts VVAW, and now soon to retire after an honorable career as an NLRB investigator. Nice to know there's been at least one honest man in government over the past 25 years!*
**
*With two hours sleep I drove the 405 miles to Whistler, BC, and then, after a great gig and a bit more sleep, down to Vancouver Island. However, as luck would have it, our travel agent put us on the wrong ferry, and we ended up dozens of miles from where we were supposed to be! Fear not, the festival arranged for the Workers to be picked up in a Beaver seaplane, and the view from 5000 feet of the Canadian Coastal Range (on our side of the border they are called the Cascades) in a coincidentally superb day of visibility was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. those snowcapped peaks stand there like jagged, broken teeth! We got to the stage in Courtenay, BC 1/2 hour before showtime. Big howdies to my native buddies Jared Suron (we loved your CD!) and NorthernBlues labelmate Doug Cox. *
**
*Lessee-- Harrison, BC, at the Harrison Arts Festival. Great hospitality, another standing O. Back on the plane and back over the border from Detroit just in time to play the Windsor (Ontario) Bluesfest, back over the border again for Kalamazoo-- this was a return engagement for me, and I re-encountered a bunch of old acquaintances there; back over the border AGAIN for Milton Ontario. Got there too late to stop the rain for my musical buddies Doc MacLean (a Canadian guy who does 300 gigs a year, resembles Leon Redbone a little) and Walter trout. But I put the mojo to the sky, and sure enough, the rain stopped for everyone else including the Workers. Want yas ta know, I stopped or prevented rain 4 times on this tour, including at the last gig, in Billings, Montana. Now if I can figure out how to MAKE it rain where it's needed, I'll know my mojo is truly all-purpose.*
**
*Had a ball in Ottawa for two days. Wrote a song while looking out over the Houses of Parliament (eat yer heart out, Washington DC and Paris: Ottawa is the most beautiful national capital in the western world! Canada ROCKS!!) that will probably make it onto my next CD. Had lovely dinners with Fred Litwin, head of NorthernBlues, while there. He and his buddy Andrew rolled out the red carpet for me and the Workers. Made a bit of a fool of myself leaving large tips. then on to Hamilton, where I had the great and unexpected pleasure of seeing my dear Canadian friends Patricia talbot, home briefly from her teaching job in Beijing, Rob Newberry, ditto from HIS teaching job in Wawa, ON, and Famous Framus, in a hiatus from HIS musical touring, when we played PepperJacks. We will get to the Boathouse in Kitchener next time, I'm sure, fellas! Love ya, Pat...*
**
*Back on the plane, off in Seattle, and over the border immediately to Fort McLeod, Alberta, where we met great new friends and fans Hugie, Suzanne and Rachel, in the motel room next to ours. Ate an entire pound of the best raspberries I ever had, for sale 100 yards from the motel. Back over the border again (are you keeping track??) down to Spokane, Mister G's; Winthrop, WA, where I again stopped the rain; Seattle at the triple Door, where we opened for John Lee Hooker Junior (God bless you and your late dad, my greatest hero), and finally encountered my longtime email correspondent Merciful Lee Dickens, with whom I've been exchanging humorous and occasionally serious emails for 8 years. Somewhere during the above frantic schedule I also ran across one of my long, longtime favorite bluesmen, American Vietnam vet and now Canadian international recording artist Ray Bonneville. First met and played with Ray in Paris back in 1983. Great seeing you, Ray, et bientot encore, eh??*
**
*Back across the border again, this time staying in Vancouver, and tearing up a great crowd at the Yale Hotel. For a hotel, this was truly a juke joint! Hurt my back a little lifting a bass cab like hundreds of weights I have moved in my career as a trucker, lumper, sawmiller and musician-- don't know why this should have been different, but I'm not dancing very well right now-- siigghh...) then nearly 500 miles north (I don't know, this may be the farthest north I ever was in the world, though maybe Inverness Scotland is that far north too) to Prince George, BC. No matter how far we get away from the mainstream of civilization, the CULtURE we encounter and take part in is universal and warmhearted! *
**
*By now truly longing for our 36-hour rest in Oklahoma City, we highballed down to Calgary, Alberta, taking the time to marvel at the mountains and glaciers of Banff (Canadian) National Park, at sunrise, on the way. We saw 2 bull elk, 2 cow elk, a 12-point whitetail buck, two Bighorn sheep (well, only Ronnie Mac got to see those), and, finally, got to watch a young black bear for 5 minutes, as he was in process of tearing up and eating some brush. I know bears are omnivores, but the stuff he was eating didn't look like bear food at all! *
**
*Our gigs at the Calgary Folkfest were triumphant. In one of the true high points of this or any other festival I ever played at, I got to host a round-robin songwriters' jam (this seems to be a particularly Canadian format, I like it very much!) with New Orleans soul singer John Boutte' and one of the most important songwriters of second-half-20th-century popular music, P. J. Sloan. Cliff got to play "Mustang Sally" with its writer, Sir Mack Rice, on our Blues Cruise. I two-upped him, in Calgary. I got to sing and play "Eve of Destruction", Secret Agent Man", and "Where Were You When I Needed You?" with (who'd a thunk it!?) the writer of ALL tHREE. Sloan, btw, was also the falsetto harmony on the surf-music hits of Jan and Dean and some Beach Boys hits, and the lead guitarist for the Mamas and the Papas!*
**
*After a few deep breaths and some laundry-doing, we headed for Notodden, Norway for one of the most famous blues festivals (20th anniversary) in the world. the Workers were super-hot, and we did 3 SRO gigs for an adoring international audience. Must have been fans from 50 or more nations there. Besides our own gigs, I got to play with James (Super Chikan) Johnson. Magic Slim was also playing there, but alas, he was always scheduled on another stage exactly when the Workers were scheduled, so we didn't get to play with him and the teardrops. But Slim and Super Chikan and myself did at least all get in a picture together. that one will be on the website in our "Photos" section. (Oh, check out the new oil paintings posted there too. Remember, I am soliciting painting commissions...!) I even got to go fishing the last afternoon there with a couple of Norwegian friends/fans. We didn't get shut out, but didn't catch any of the trout Norway is famous for. Just caught a few of the local tiger perch. *
**
*Back on the plane, finally (for the last time this swing, over the border back in the USA and off to Niantic, Connecticut for a down-home little affair called Cooking at McCooks. Met the most distinctive hotel operator of all our touring, a big fellow named Jude, whose small establishment was New England delightful. Jude, tara, Becky, we sure hope you get the dog/police stuff under control so that the Cookin' series can continue! Had a lovely swim in Long Island Sound. First time I've been in the Atlantic since '05. From there, it was Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, arriving half an hour before showtime again after trying to follow 4 different sets of directions. Still tore the place up. Finally, it was back to Newark and on the plane to Billings, Montana, where we had some of the best musical and cultural fellowship in the entire tour. Besides a kickass Workers mainstage gig, I got to play on (what a coincidence, though there is no such thing as a coincidence) the Stillwater Stage, 2 hours straight and the crowd crying for more, and also with our dear friends the Reverend Peyton and His Big Damn Band (Breezy on washboard and Jamie Peyton on drums, all on vocals. Breezy PLAYS that axe! One person likened her concentration to that of former Chicago Bears linebacker Mike Singletary. Woof!!), piano boogieman Barrelhouse Chuck, from Chicago, John Hammond Junior-- whom I smarted off to 35 years ago in a folkie club down on Charles Street in Boston; I'd been waiting 35 years to apologize for being a smartmouth wannabe-- and Southern-rock/blues sensation Eric Lindell. I dedicated our last set of the tour to Michael Newberry's wife Michelle. *
**
*And finally we are home, and looking forward to seeing some or all of you down on Beale Street Memphis tomorrow and Saturday night at the Rum Boogie. After that 6 weeks of touring, a mere 475 miles to Memphis on Interstate 40 is nothing but a hop skip 'n jump.*
**
*My back hurts. My hips hurt. My shoulders hurt. My guitar-playing hand, broken in 4 pieces last year, is about the strongest piece of me remaining besides my voice. I'm ready and eager to continue. We are SOOOOOO blessed, by God and by you all!*
**
*Have a fine rest of the summer, and may a miracle occur in all your lives, individually and collectively,*
**
*God Bless You,*
**
*Watermelon Slim*
Back To List
August 20, 2007
*Forgot to mention: in Notodden, the third gig we did was a party for the festival volunteers, of whom there were more than 600. We also noted that the huge Calgary Folkfest had over 13 HUNDRED volunteers! Canada and Norway know how to put on festivals, yesireebob! Joining the Workers on stage was legendary guitarist Jeremy Spencer of Fleetwood Mac. tore UP the slide guitar, he did.*
**
*I put down six rough mixes of songs for the next NorthernBlues CD day before yesterday. Y'all are gonna like 'em. Chris Hardwick will continue to produce. He knows my music and my capabilities better than anybody.
Although I have always had a dream producer, and that is Ry Cooder, who is not available this year, Chris Wick is the main reason you have heard me or heard of me. He is the organizer and leader of the business team without which I'd still be driving a truck and playing for chump change on weekends. I can't say thank you enough.*
**
*Bringing you totally up to date, and I mean date: last night, something really unusual occurred. two relentless touring musicians were in the same city with neither of them having work for at least 24 hours. So me and Candye Kane-- that's right, the famous Candye Kane-- went out to dinner together. Candye met me and my daughter in Memphis at the BMAs (just like the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival will always be "the Biscuit", the Blues Music Awards will always be "the Handys" to me), and we recently began regular correspondence. On our date, I tried very hard to let her know all about my liabilities (hey, 's been a long time since I had a date), but we get along GREAt nonetheless. When I make the shitkicking truckdriving C+W album I've talked about here, Candye will be singing on it! Maybe Honour Havoc too, but I really want to save her for our own "Stillhouse Boys" record together. *
**
*Right up to the minute: my greatest fans in Oklahoma City, Paul and Susan LaVictoire, just left here, after coming over to jump-start the Honeywagon, which totally unexpectedly decided not to start this evening (and I gotta be in Memphis tomorrow). I had apparently left its flashers on when I parked it this afternoon, and having sat for six weeks, turns out the battery water was low, evaporated down in Oklahoma's intense heat, and that was all it took to weaken it beyond being able to start.
We sat and schmoozed about what their six trophy children have been up to, and about our Christian faith, how it's been tested, and how confirmed.*
**
*If I can remember anything else I'll let you know, blues fans. See y'all in Memphis tomorrow night, *
**
*Slim*
Back To List
August 11, 2007
Hi Slim.
I'm just sitting, here in Sweden, listening to Your latest CD "The Wheel man", and I really like it.
The "Newspaper Reporter" was/is the best track, but I really like them all.
Kind regard
G�ran/George Andersson
Back To List
August 6, 2007
Hi Slim!
Thank you for a great visit in Norway. The workers are one of the best band at Notodden Blues Festival EVER !!, and I have been there for every year since 1994 !! I have never seen a band who came so close to the crowd, and delivered a blues consert so damn good !!!! I am probably one of your greatest fan in Norway, and I hope you can remember me. We spoked about some bikers outside the consert area. I drowe a Harley, and you told me that you have played for som bikermeets sometimes.
I hope that the workers will return to Norway sometimes, if not: I will com to Oklahoma !!!
/Bjorn
Back To List
August 3, 2007
howdy tall drink o water,
dont know when i have been so intrigued by such a brilliant, talented and charming person. hope to hear from you again soon. i know you are rocking notodden now. I played there a few years ago and it was so much fun. love ya sexy smart guy, candye kane in new york city
work what you got, if its a little or a lot!
www.candyekane.com for news and updates!
www.myspace.com/candyekaneband
Back To List
August 2, 2007
Hey Slim:
Bonjour Ami ... nice shows here, ay? a packed house both nights ...
We're still thinkin' about ya, rolling into Steeltown, Canada like a Southern tornado ...
Rob's playing his Slim inspired guitar, brilliantly, of course ... under the Willow Goddess tree ...
and me? I'm fervently hoping for the sake of the longevity of the Dream, that you're planning, not requesting, a Break, say somewhere around October ...
and hoping to see you again ... sooner than we all would have thought possible ... xoxo ...
Patricia
P.S. I'll try to remember to bring you a kite from Beijing ... now, how many of your friends can make you such a cool empty promise?
Back To List
July 30, 2007
Really enjoyed your performances at the Calgary Folk Music Festival. I hadn't heard of you before, but after your session with Jim Byrnes, Mary Flower and the rest, I went over to the record tent and got you CD.
Sometimes you just have to do that. And your performance of "Northwest Passage" next day was riveting; it reminded me of an old shanachie I once heard in Galway Ireland.
My question for you is this: what other performers did you like most at the festival (blues or otherwise)? Your music was my happy discovery -- what was yours?
--Jim Tubman
Back To List
July 29, 2007
*Hey Bill/Slim:*
*I sure did have an amazing time here in Vancouver last Tuesday. Mike and Ronnie were super nice, we all had a smoke and you guys played a ass-kickin' version of "Oklahoma Blues" for little 'ol me, who had to get up at 4:30 AM to work at the Railroad.* *I'm telling all my friends on the Eastern Coast of Canada to go catch you guys in September in Fredericton.*
* Michelle and I thank Slim for taking photos with us, and I'll make sure I have the day off the next time, so we can have a bourbon or three on the second set. Anyone who's a bourbon man/woman is all right by me.* *Best Regards, and have fun in Norway,*
*Bruce 13.*
*New Westminster, BC*
Back To List
July 25, 2007
Slim, Michael, Cliff & Ronnie, we can't thank you enough for finally making it to the famous Yale Hotel in Vancouver, Canada. I bugged club management & the promoter for two years to get you guys in there, and finally it happened. Your high octane show last night was the best at The Yale by far this year and we get a lot of top Blues performers passing through the joint. Hearing you guys deliver songs like "Juke Joint Woman", "Devil's Cadillac", "The Ashtray's Full", etc. "live" proves why you were nominated for six Blues Awards. I only wish we could've stayed for the second set, but when one has to get up in the pre-dawn hours and has a nagging wife - "time to go home dear"... Well what can I say? I love her just the same. And I love you guys too. I've got all of your cd's and look forward to the next one. Hope to see you back this way soon. In the meantime, keep safe wherever the Blues highway takes you and remember to keep the pedal to the metal, the shiny side up & the greasy side down.
Russ, a.k.a. R.B. (/with initials like those, is it any wonder why I love those Blues/)
Vancouver, BC Canada
Back To List
July 24, 2007
I bugged a blues fan friend for weeks to go to the concert. I told him he had never heard anyone perform like Watermelon Slim and he was in a league of his own. He raved about it afterwards.
I'm the hero who told him. Watermelon Slim is like a primer on how to entertain and stay a decent human being people can talk to.
Something he did for me personally really touched my heart.
I know when he reaches the big time and I see him on Jimmy Kimmel or some place like that that he will remember and still play for his friends in Hamilton Ontario.
Even though he didn't play Jimmy Bell for me . You guys in the office get the wheel man cartoon on a tee shirt for us to buy.
Back To List
July 24, 2007
Howdy Slim and band! I'm still in a state of shock and denial over last night's sold out performance at the Triple Door. Shock because you were even better than I anticipated (and I anticipated a helluva show) but - more importantly - denial because it didn't last long enough!!! No offense to John Lee Hooker, Jr. and band, but just one incredible set from you left me jonesing for more! I needed a whole night of that kind of glorious celebration.
I enjoyed finally getting to sit down and talk with you in person, oh my brother. You are one charismatic mufka. And Michael was entertaining as hell, too (but our Kings of Trivia team came in dead last after all our bragging and preening, didn't it now - ha, I love it)! Cliff and Ronnie Mack were cool, too, and were very gracious to put up with all my sleeve-tugging.
You know, the sensation I came away with after last night is that not only did I witness one of the absolute best performances I've seen in a long, long time, but I feel like I made some good new friends, too.
I'll be checking your calendar and that of some of the local blues clubs in the area to see if I can't get you guys an extended visit for another trip to our fair city.
Anyway, I could babble on and on, but I'll try to hold up some for now. Many thanks and
Holler Atcha Flipside,
Merciful Lee
Back To List
July 20, 2007
I've got to say, we were blown away.
A few of us caught the show on Sat and were totally blown away. I did attempt to hook up myspace as a friend but for some reason didn't get accepted. That's cool. I'll bet there are alot of those and it must be hard to check stuff out. Outside of becoming a believer I really just wanted to thank Mike for walking me back to catch Walter Trout before he split. To see him behind the skins took me by surprise and what a rhythm section !!!
Thanks for the show and I'll catch the guys next time they hit the area.
Johnny Pettit
Back To List
July 20, 2007
Hey, thanks, Punkin!! So glad you got in touch. We're up here in Alberta right now, doing the last 10 days of the tour, and I want you to know that that healing thing is what we're after.
God bless you, dear,
Ho Ka Hey, Watermelon Slim
Back To List
July 19, 2007
Dear Watermelon,
I just want you to know your show in Kalamazoo was not just great - but from a health perspective actually healing!! I had been feeling the blues for the past week or so because of all the shit going down w/Bush Administration - death, death, w/o any giving. I knew when we came to the show I seen your performance and like a heroin addict, just stuck my arms out there, ready to receive and I felt the power of healing from the blues that any one knows from being effected by good blues music, it is like a medicine. Anyway I bought the c.d. and checked out your website. Hoping to catch your show in Chicago on October 13, 2007. I'll bring a pumpkin for you to carve. Anyway from Michigan Punkin & Dave say a big "Megwetch" (thank-you for all you have given) to you and the Workers. We really enjoyed ourselves and I'm digging the c.d. daily. Look for us on the trails and keep up the good work.
Yours in the Spirit of the Blues,
Always, Punkin Shananaquet
Back To List
July 10, 2007
YO! SLIMBO!
Man, can't wait to see you in Seattle in LESS THAN 2 WEEKS and finally meet you in person!!! (You will of course be sending the limo for me - right?) I've assembled a worthy mutant army who will be in front row attendance.
By the way, brotherman, the food there is first-rate - might want to plan on snagging yer din-din there (I recommend the pad thai). Pad thai in a blues show??? Relax, Jake - it's Seattletown.
I hope we'll have an opportunity to shoot the jit.
Oh, and I trust you won't embarrass me by dropping the i-word. Har, that's a jo - I say, that's a JOKE, son!
Your Biggest Idiot Fan
In This Or Any Hemisphere,
Merciful Lee Dickens
Back To List
July 5, 2007
I wanted to tell you about my minor miracle. FM radio reception is pretty lousy out in the burbs west of Portland, but I had to try to hear your set at the Waterfront Blues Festival this afternoon. So I repositioned my radio, untied the fm antenna, and lo & behold I heard your voice clearly, singing like a rusty angel. But as soon as the next group came on, the reception returned to the usual hiss and static.
I've been a fan ever since I happened upon your last cd at my local library ... and I'm especially glad to see that you have a newer one out now!! I just read on your web site that you have made several cds in addition to these two. Are the earlier ones still available? I'd love to have a copy of "Blue Freightliner"!
And I hope nobody ever offers you that million dollars to fund your investigation. I don't believe that our loss of you as a musician could ever compare with any truths that you might find.
Charlene
Back To List
June 24, 2007
*/10-4, Mike, /*
I DO appreciate people who actually think afterwards about anything
I have said or sang or done!
I come by my politics both through decades of experience and
activism, and besides that by way of generations of family
involvement, going back to before the American revolution. My
ancestors include Samuel Adams, John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, my great great aunt, wrote /Uncle tom's
Cabin/, which some historians list as a catalyst of the War Between
the States. More recently, my late uncle Leverett Saltonstall served
as US senator from Massachusetts, and my cousin Endicott "Chub"
Peabody served that state as governor. Dad served one term as a
state rep and quit, disillusioned by the political logrolling.
I am a longtime political investigator and activist. My masters'
thesis culminates with my own independent, and undebunked,
investigation of suppressed and unfollowed leads in the case of the
Oklahoma City Bombing. the neoNazis who conspired with McVeigh to
commit the bombing-- and the cowards in the FBI who allowed it to
happen-- still run free, and some of them live in Arkansas! With a
minimum of about $750,000, a million to be safe, I would set my
blues career aside, assemble and lead a team of journalistic
investigators and security consultants, and surveil and bust Elohim
City, as the FBI and AtF were ready to do in March of 1995, but
chickened out at the last minute.
It matters a lot to me that you have been good enough to let me know
that there was disagreement. And I agree wholeheartedly that it
doesn't matter whether a Dem or Repub is in power. these parties'
first imperative is stability and continuity of the dominatnt
two-party system. And Bush/Cheney would never have won without the
votes of millions of people who call themselves "Democrats".
And no, the continuing shortfall of restoration and rehabilitation
is not ALL George W. Bush's fault. But when that volume of money is
spent on war, a climate of assumption that the US would jeopardize
its war effort, and worse, its sons and daughters in the field, if
it made domestic, compassionate priorities paramount. We are,
consciously, opting for the uncertain benefits of foreign war in
lieu of the demonstrable benefits of domestic infrastructural
rehabilitation. And George Bush, and Dick Cheney, and Paul
Wolfowitz, and Don Rum-filled, Dick Perle, John Bolton, Alberto
Gonzales-- the neocon cabal-- are responsible for this distortion of
priorities.
Next time you come to a show somewhere, please do come and introduce
yourself to me and the band. We'd love to meet you and yours, and
till then,
God Bless You,
Watermelon Slim
P.S. Would you give me permission to include this dialogue between
us in my blog on my website?
/10-4, we go--o--o--o--o--one.../
Back To List
June 24, 2007
Watermelon, First of all *THANK YOU* for taking the time to write back concerning Ft Smith. I first saw you perform at a small festival in Osco, AR. I told everyone that day "Watermelon is the real deal!". You are still the real deal! We love you! My only concern is I heard people around me saying "Was that necessary?" when you called the President an Idiot. It just made me think about it. I did NOT vote for Bush. I want you to understand I agree with a lot of your critiques of the man.
I will say I lived in New Orleans 15 years ago. Everyone told me back then. "You know this town is a soup bowl. "We built a town where a town should never have been built." I think we all agree there is some real truth to that. The US Government has sent several billions to New Orleans. I have been involved in this since it all happened. Mississippi which took on the direct hit has done a remarkable job rebuilding already including a complete four lane bridge between Bay St Louis, MS and Pass Christian, MS. New Orleans on the other hand is sitting on billions with the local government trying to determine what to do. I just cannot put all the blame on Bush for this whole mess up.
Like you also said ........ We can think about all of this in 2008 and decide what to do. I know when any other person gets voted in office they will not be perfect. We will have many of the same problems no matter if we have a Democrat or Republican. I know it's nice to hear a section of the crowd applaud and scream out when you call Bush an Idiot but remember it's the exact same people that voted him in office that makes up the other half of the crowd that's not saying a word.
Like I said, I did *not* vote for Pres. Bush but I will be in Washington D.C. next week on the fourth of July thinking over and over how nice it is to be here. I just think we need to at least try not to be to hard on our own leader.
Most likely none of this will matter but being a Watermelon Slim fan it matters to me that I at least let you know what was being said around us.
Again, Thank You and we Love You!
Mike
PS Have a great show in MS this weekend. We want to be there but the D.C. trip might keep us from coming. Sounds like a fun place.
Back To List
June 24, 2007
Dear Sir/Madam,
You are, in America, entitled to your opinion. And so am I. Now,
I could have stood there and been much more specific: I could
have caled Bush, and in particular his handler, Dick Cheney,
cynical, greedy war criminals. I could have said that he was an
irresponsible commander-in-chief for allowing-- ordering-- the
lion's share of the available combat troops of the United States
to be bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, making it
logistically impossible for us to stop a North Korean invasion
of the South, if that reclusive, desperate and unstable nation
decided to try to take advantage of US military overextension.
But I didn't have a lot of time. And so I contented myself with
asking you all, my friends assembled in Fort Smith, why our
government-- not just our president and cabinet, but our
bipartisan Congress-- felt it had the money, and the political
imperative, to spend 2-plus billion dollars a WEEK making 10s of
thousands more combat veterans, while debris plumes continue to
extend half a mile or more out from where the water normally
reaches, in Louisiana and Mississippi, where boats are still
lying on dry land almost 2 years after Katrina, where businesses
remain closed, and families are still living in temporary
housing. If we have that much money to "HELP" people who hate
us-- all polls in Iraq say so-- why do we steadfastly refuse to
give our own citizens this level of support?
ALL festivals are "family" festivals. I didn't call Bush an
obscenity, or any string of obscenities. "Idiot" is about as
mild as I will get with the man. trust me, sir/madam, "idiot" is
not going to warp the sensibilities of your children or
grandchildren. And, sorry, my free speech, as a public figure,
trumps your desire to shield your loved ones from variance of
public opinion.
I appreciate your past attendance of Watermelon Slim and the
Workers musical affairs. thank you! But the bottom line is, I
shall not censor my own speech, except to the point that I will
not use scatological or other kinds of obscenities. I don't run
a "G" rated show. I'm a bluesman. My show would probably rate
about PG-13, based on occasional sexual double entendres within
lyrics, and occasional suggestive dancing and other stage moves.
But no nudity, and no "goddamn motherfucking bastard
sonsabitches" type of language. I will add, gently, that you are
the only person in my performing career who has ever identified
the word "idiot" as having crossed any lines of appropriateness
or taste.
And if I think the putative leader of the "Free World" bears the
historical burden of outright stupidity (and that is the best
that can be said for him), I will say so forthrightly. Had I
been president, a division-strength RDF would have been on the
Pakistani border of Afghanistan within three weeks of 9/11/01
(pay Musharraf however many billions he wanted), sifted the
sands of eastern Afghanistan before Osama and Mullah Omar could
slip away, found them and their forces, closed with them, killed
them, and withdrew. We would have taken significant casualties.
But not thousands of dead, and 10s of 1000s of wounded, GIs and
Marines. And every one would have been an undying American hero,
and a hero to the rest of a grateful world. For pennies on the
dollars we have already spent, and continue insanely to spend.
I am not a saint. But I do pray that God will keep all my
friends safe, healthy and fed, and so,
God Bless You,
Watermelon Slim
Back To List
June 24, 2007
*There was NO excuse for Watermelon Slim to call President Bush an Idiot at the Ft. Smith Blues Festival.* We have seen Watermelon perform any many venues including the 2007 Blues Awards and Ground Zero.
THIS CROSSED THE LINE! Come on! You do not call the *President Of The United States* names at a family festival.
Back To List
June 23, 2007
Please get back to Watermelon Slim how much we appreciated him in Norman, OK. He just proves to all of us that life is so full, rich, and rewarding. I bought his newest record: I never go a day without listening to it. To me his music, sound, and the other band members with him gives a new meaning to soul and the blues. I wish he could be here more often. Maybe the performing arts theatre at Norman North High School could be utilized. Anyway, thank him so much for me and my friends.
Twana
Back To List
June 20, 2007
Slim,
First off thank you for this FANTASTIC album, this is the best blues album that I can recall from this era. I first heard one of your tunes "Black Water" on my XM Radio and I had to find this album. I actually bought two, one for myself and one for my father who introduced me to the blues. I will most defiantly come to see you perform if you are playing anywhere near Dallas. It is like a breath of fresh air to hear an album like this. Almost inspires me to pick my guitar up and play some licks.
Thanks once again!
Lance
Back To List
June 19, 2007
Hi there Slim, Mike, CLiff, and Ronnie ! I am the skinny ''cowboy'' that caught your show at Cajun's,,, in Little Rock,,,
June 15 ,,,with Sonny "Blues Man'' Mcguire !!! You guys were EVERYTHING that he said !!! JUST AWESOME !!!!!! Glad that the ''Watermelon Mic'' was such a great SURPISE for YOU ! I know
you will CHERISH it !!! It meant so much to him and Lee Cosly,,to ''create'' it for YOU !!! It did sound AWESOME !!!! Hope to see all of you guys again ! Good luck with the ''road' !
A NEW FAN,,,,,,, ''Cowboy Dave'
Back To List
June 18, 2007
Hi Slim & Workers. Thanks for a great show at Cajun's in Little Rock on June 15. You all rocked (as usual). I want to say thanks for spending the time to talk with me after the show & to get a few photos with you and the band. Any time you come to Little Rock (or Helena for "Da Biscuit"), I'll be there with my friends to see you all. May the muse always be with you,
Bruce
Back To List
June 12, 2007
Dear Slim and Band:
It was most excellent to catch you for the second time at Darwins, in Marietta, GA! You guys not only "Rock"...You "Blue" Man!
You were all cool, conversational and gracious beyond the call, to sign the "Rev. Finster-esque" poster I had Cliff rip "out da winder" fer me!!! Sure would love to catch you at some other "Mo-Bigga" venues in
town....like: The Variety Playhouse in Little 5, Smiths Olde Bar in Midtown or the Roxy in Buckhead. All viable halls fer ye!.....I wouldn't lie!
How was the Riverfest in Chattanooga???..Nashville???....know you threw it all down, as usual!
Whatever yo 20 be, may it be stylin and profilin, gents!................Love the album!
Peace and Happy Trails!
Sincerely,
Alexander Fuss....drummer, singer-songwriter, but most importantly:
The Original " May-retta Melon-headed Mutha"
Back To List
June 11, 2007
Hello slim long time. looking forward to seing you again at the Portland Waterfront Blues fest.
Man alive i dug your last album with the workers. it is smoking. Drop me a hello sometime.
welcome back to Oregon. we will have to fix you up with one of our Oregon Hermiston mellons.. Now that a good eaten mellon
Blueduck chuck
St helens oregon
Back To List
June 4, 2007
Hey Slim, Thanks so much for the goodies! Wow,trials and tribs of life on the road. I read about your adventures and can only think that you will never run out of stuff to write songs about. Ya know, I'm one of the few guys in Western Mass. wearing a cowboy hat. So when people ask me about it (which they do) I tell them to check out your web site and buy the CD with the straw hat on the cover. Anywho between you and me I still believe in Santa Clause. Merry Christmas and God bless you.
your old pal....
Roy
Back To List
June 2, 2007
Hi Slim ! I let a couple of my friends ( blues ) listen to your music, and they become a fan of you at once. Keep on playing!
/Bjorn
Back To List
May 31, 2007
hey WHEELMAN, transformer hauler tommy from TEXAS, thanks for the call the other day it made my stroll down the supper slab even better than it already was. how was that stroll over to salina in that 379? keeper between the ditches. until we meet out on the big road keep on mashing that motor......they call me homegrown i'm out
Trucker Tommy
Texas
Back To List
May 28, 2007
Hiya Watermelon Slim. I see that you are appearing at the Mississippi Valley Blues Fest this year. I like it. Just got the cd "Wheelman" by resubscribing to " Blues Revue" and I enjoyed it. Now after reading your bio on the web site, I'm not sure if an uneducated dumbass like me is worthy of talking to you. Oh wait, yes I am. My story is what it is and so I work.
I also see that you apparently are an anti war person. The * administration has gotten our young people into a terrible mess, not to mention all of us. So it is my opinion that this fucker has to go and the sooner the better. At the Mississippi Valley Blues Fest, I am going to try and wear some sort of "statement" shirt so you will be able to spot me. If nothing else, I will be the fat bald drunk in the front row. I admire your political views as well as your music. Kweep up the good work and I will at least enjoy your show at the Fest.
Joe Penry
Davenport, IA
Back To List
May 27, 2007
Hello Slim!
I just love your music, and the way you preform the blues. I live in Norway and I already got my ticet to Notodden Blues Festival. I look forward to see and hear the workers, you sound are just GREAT!!
/Bjorn
Back To List
May 24, 2007
Hi Slim: I'm from Little Rock, AR and I got to see you in Helena, AR last October. By far, you & the Workers were the best act during the three day festival. You were also kind enough to talk with me and sign two of your CD's for me. A BIG THANK YOU TO YOU!! I really look forward to seeing you again in Little Rock on June 15. I'll bring a gaggle of friends with me that I have turned on to your music. You and your band are simply the best. God bless you & may the muse always be with you.
Bruce
Back To List
May 23, 2007
*Dear Blues Fans,*
**
*I owe you a lot of blog again. I am now (again) 20-odd appearances behind, and richer by a million emotional dollars by all of you magnificent folks that I have met, and played for, and gotten up close and personal with.*
**
*It is taking it personal-- being in all affairs personal as well as professional-- that separates the artist from the thundering herd. I must write up the events of last night, and my reflections upon them, before I get to the joys and trials of the road, including the Blues Music Awards, which will receive its own treatment, our lovely sojourn with Janice and tony Negri in Rosemark, our continuing relationship with Mississippi genius Jimbo Mathus in places like tupelo (yo, Oldsmobile!), our live DVD night at Ground Zero, and so on and so on, because of the crucial place in my development these two gigs in Santa Fe represent.*
**
*I was playing as the opening act for Buddy Guy at the Lensic Performing Arts Center, and afterwards at the Eldorado Hotel, probably the most prestigious in New Mexico's capital. I had come nearly to the end of my show, having played Smokestack Lightning as a symphonic piece (seriously, y'all, that's the way I think about that particular number when I stretch out in it), and I told the crowd (you) that I had one more song. I looked to my right and people were shining flashlights on me, and telling me that I had to get off the stage. I said it'll be a short one, and they insisted that I get off NOW. *
**
*Now, I am, first of all, a performer for whom "the show must go on" is an absolute first priority. I'm that fellow who played six gigs in 5 states with a broken guitar-playing wrist last year. *
**
*Second, I am a man among my fellow men and women who wants to give of myself all that my fellows need and want. And you, the crowd, resoundingly wanted an encore, or, as it was, a last short number. *
**
*But then, lastly, I am an artist, and each show is a piece of my art. I turn myself inside out for people. I take and give everything hat I do intensely personally. *
**
*I had never yet been told, without appeal, to leave the stage when the crowd is hanging on my performance. the artist in me became so disgusted at the idea that he was not being allowed to finish a piece of his art that his hand tossed what happened to be in it-- which was, alas, my most dear piece-of-mojo guitar slide, the 70-80 year old bottle of silver polish many of you have watched me use. *
**
*I tossed it towards b