TRAVELING MAN
Watermelon Slim (NorthernBlues Music)
William “Watermelon Slim” Homans III serves up his blend of raspy vocals, harmonica, and old school electric slide guitar skills with this live double album coming out March 27. It’s not entirely a trip down Memory Lane, but it offers a nice mix of original and classic blues which include covers of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning,” Muddy Waters’ “Two Trains Running,” and Mississippi Fred McDowell’s “61 Highway Blues.”
Personally, I could have done without him including the old hard-drivin’ blues standard “John Henry,” only because I got teased about the song in elementary and junior high school many years ago. But, honestly, he offers a fine rendition of it.
This collection really isn’t about the songs so much as it is about Slim’s authentic, natural bluesy tempo and wet texture he brings to them with his near-yearning voice and combination of crafty picking and slide across his frets. Nothing seems forced.
Slim is a character, a one-time forklift driver, funeral officiator, watermelon farmer, newspaper reporter, saw mill operator, truck driver, and anti-war activist who also holds two college degrees and once led a prison band without being incarcerated himself. Now 70, he has 14 albums to his credit and is waiting for word in May on the fate of his 2019 release, Church of the Blues, which has been nominated for two prestigious 2020 Blues Music Awards.
First Published March 19, 2020, 3:12 a.m.
