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reviews

watermelon slim

2/10/2019

1 Comment

 
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​Watermelon Slim- Church of the Blues
 
Bill “Watermelon Slim” Homans idea of the clerical side of the afterlife is a similar visual to that of a modern office. Saint Peter obviously would have to keep a ledger to keep track of the throngs of people coming through the pearly gates and who would be going elsewhere.
“St. Peters Ledger,” the opener on Watermelons Slim latest Church of the Bluesis an afterlife plea, where the narrator is hitting up Peter for the favor of keeping him out of Purgatory and even paying off his drug dealer the devil.
The opener, and what follows is an album of roots and blues complete with white hot rhythm section and the exceptional slide guitar work of Slim himself. 
Blues songs about modern day issues are always risk silliness; “Poster Modern Blues” bypasses the risk by wearing tongue in cheek on its sleeve while rearing a hook and horn section.
“Mni Wiconi- The Water Song” is an activist tune addressing disappearing water while taking on a Los Lobos vibe.
His version of “Get Out of my Life Woman” is refreshingly up-beat sung with some vigor that the woman is gone, while his version of “Smokestack Lightning” conveys a feel of North Mississippi Hill Country Blues.
“Charlottesville” has the repeated line of “I’ve got the blues for my nation” as it addresses the violence the city witnessed in 2017; it’s a serious message coming across in a boogie blues tune. Things close with the silly “Halloween Mama” that comes complete with a keyboard heavy, garage-rock vibe. 
 
 
 

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1 Comment
William P. Homans link
2/10/2019 03:06:00 pm

Watermelon Slim- Church of the Blues

Bill “Watermelon Slim” Homans' 1. idea of the clerical side of the afterlife is a similar visual to that of a modern office. Saint Peter obviously would have to keep a ledger to keep track of the throngs of people coming through the pearly gates and who would be going elsewhere.
“St. Peters Ledger,” the opener on Watermelon 2. Slim's 3. latest CD, 4. Church of the Blues, 5.. is an afterlife plea, where the narrator is hitting up Peter for the favor of keeping him out of Purgatory and even paying off his drug dealer the devil.
The opener, and what follows, 6. is an album of roots and blues complete with white hot rhythm section and the exceptional slide guitar work of Slim himself.
Blues songs about modern day issues 7.. always risk silliness; “Post-Modern 8.. Blues” bypasses the risk by wearing tongue in cheek on its sleeve while rearing a hook and horn section. (What does "rearing" mean in this context? 9..)
“Mni Wiconi- The Water Song” is an activist tune addressing disappearing water while taking on a Los Lobos vibe.
His version of “Get Out of my Life Woman” is refreshingly up-beat, 10. sung with some vigor now 11. that the woman is gone, while his version of “Smokestack Lightning” conveys a feel of North Mississippi Hill Country Blues.
“Charlottesville” has the repeated line of “I’ve got the blues for my nation” as it addresses the violence the city witnessed in 2017; it’s a serious message coming across in a boogie blues tune. Things close with the silly “Halloween Mama” that comes complete with a keyboard heavy, garage-rock vibe.

****************************************************************

Thank you for this review! I thought I might ask, gently, if Alternate Root could use a professionally-trained proofreader and grammarian. You probably know that I hold a B.A. in journalism and history and an M.A. in history, plus 6 teaching certifications. Gently, I must say that this review was dashed off and uploaded without any process of proofreading or edition. The substance of the review is very good! But I have numbered the typos and ambiguities. As ,my old prof in J-School might say, it looks like you meant to get back to this but then got working on other stuff.

Print-readiness in journalistic technology-- read, computerization-- is also partly to blame because it's so derned easy to write something and (click), there it goes without going through an editor. LOL.

If you should have any interest in discussing a position, piece work, or some other arrangement, I invite you to write to my booking agent and producer, Chris Hardwick of Norman, OK, at
chris.redhousetalent@gmail.com, or call him at 405-659-6805.
I could also submit published writing samples if you were interested. I am

Sincerely Yours,

Bill Homans, aka
Watermelon Slim

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