Magic Slim was born Morris Holt in Torrence, Mississippi on August 7th, 1937. His parents were sharecroppers, living on a farm. Days started early with the need to feed the barnyard animals before heading out to the fields. Magic Slim remembers that "I still had to go to the field until I got age enough to leave home. I got little jobs around there when I was thirteen and that was when I got my hand hurt. I hurt it in a cotton gin. I was at the gin and my hand got caught on a piece of wire going up in there, and I grabbed it and before I could turn it loose, I lost my little pinky finger."
The big man showed early musical talents with singing in his church choir and playing piano. After his accident, he couldn't play the piano anymore because he didn't have that little pinky finger, so he picked up the guitar. He made his first guitar out of bailing wire from a broom, which he nailed to a wall. "My Mama whopped me when I tore up her broom," he said, "but she let me keep on using it. My Mama said later that if she had known what I'd be into later, she wouldn't have given me a whopping."
The Blues migrated from the south to Chicago during the 1940’s and 50’s. Slim followed in 1955 when he made his first trip to Chicago to play for Magic Sam, a friend from back home. Magic Sam gave Slim tips on playing the guitar, and it was Sam who called his bass player Magic Slim. Slim was lean and tall in those days, and he learned from Sam quickly. Sam told Slim to develop his own guitar style. "Magic Sam told me, don't try to play like him, and don't try to play like
no one else; he said get a sound of your own."
Slim did get a sound of his own; his guitar tone is tough and cutting, united with a vibrato formed by his fingers against the strings to reproduce the sound of a slide guitar while still being able to bend the note. Slim said, "I slide with my finger. I use nothing on my finger, a lot of players try to get a sound like me and I play the same guitar everybody else plays."
Magic Slim’s latest Blind Pig release, Bad Boy, is with the Teardrops as back-up. The album shows the man still following that echo of advice from Magic Sam. Slim’s style is an easy Blues, with leads coming out of the chords organically. He is comfortable letting one note ride (“Sunrise Blues”) and more than happy to fill every available space with riffs (“Gambling Blues”). The title track opens up Bad Boy, with a hurried guitar part that sets the pace and the flow for the rhythm section. “How Much More Long” channels a Chuck Berry rock’n’roll beat as it fast tracks along, “Someone Else Is Stepping In” hitches a ride uptown for a night out with a determined stride, and “Champagne and Reefer” reasons the time and place for the bubbles and the smoke.
Magic Slim & the Teardrops deliver Blues. Bad Boydoes not move far away from his usual album format. But that is the point-- to develop and expand on a sound that is all his own. Magic Slim has done that, and you can hear the satisfaction crawling up through the growl of his vocals. More on Magic Slim can be found on his website. DANNY McCLOSKEY/RA
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