Watermelon Slim
Escape From The Chicken Coop

There's nothing to do about it, blues is something you have inside, under your skin. You mature it and grow it within you, and the more your life is filled with sacrifices and suffering, the more your blues will be affected and become communicative. Watermelon Slim is a white bluesman who's had plenty of imposed and sometimes sought-after suffering, and his rugged face seems to prove it. Born in Boston, he participated in the Vietnam War, which surely influenced and marked all his days until today, just like prison and the heart attack he suffered a few years ago, which helped put him back on the right track.

For a few years now, Watermelon Slim has been one of the most recognized bluesmen in America, awarded numerous Grammy Awards, enough to put great black bluesmen to shame. After landing on the Northenblues label, Slim seems to achieve the desired results after a life spent as a true working-class man, which his life has been. His résumé includes the most varied jobs such as gravedigger, carpenter, elevator salesman, and truck driver.

This album is dedicated to truck drivers, those men and women who spend their days sitting in their seats traversing the endless American roads, far from bankers, brokers, and computers, as the author writes in the cd notes.

But it's known that sooner or later, those who live the blues in the USA have to come to terms with Nashville, the home of country. So even Watermelon Slim, after three albums of earthy and raw blues, recommended "The Wheel Man" (2007), moves to Tennessee and composes thirteen songs mixing his blues with country music, but he does it his own way. For the first time, he is not accompanied by the faithful The Workers, but plays as tradition dictates with local country musicians.

The blues influences of the great masters, including his favorite Sonny Boy Williamson, do not entirely abandon him, and the initial "Caterpillar Whine" is placed at the beginning to testify to it. A great virtuoso of the slide guitar, Slim demonstrates this with this tough blues that connects to the previous records. The short and amusing saloon waltz "Skinny Women and Fat Cigars", led by Stuart Duncan's violin, presents us with a different Watermelon than we had heard before and pairs with "You See Me Like I See You", a romantic song sung in a duet with Jenny Littleton's female voice.

"Wreck on the Highway" is sparse and driven by the dobro and mandolin with Watermelon telling us his stories with his Howlin’ Wolf-style voice. The slide is once again the protagonist in the western Should Have Done More and the honky-tonk 18, 18 Wheeler. More country and bucolic are "Hank Williams You Wrote My Life" and "America's Wives".

In short, if you want to know the true bluesman Watermelon Slim, capable of giving energy and vitality to the blues and capable of fiery live performances, look for the previous albums. If you want to discover a versatile Watermelon Slim immersed in the smoke and alcohol of old American saloons playing country with his slide, you can approach this newly released album; you won't be disappointed, whatever your choice may be.