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Watermelon_Slim-Ringers-2010-CFD

ARtiSt...... : Watermelon Slim
AlbUM....... : Ringers
GENRE....... : Blues
lAbEl....... : Northernblues Music
CAtNR....... : NBM0059
SoURcE...... : CDDA
RiP.dAtE.... : 14-02-2011
StREEt.dAtE. : 28-05-2010
QUAlitY..... : VBR/44.1kHz/Joint Stereo
URl......... : http://www.watermelonslim.com/
SiZE........ : 65.58MB

.. S O N G . T i T L E .. 

01. Good Old Boys Never Change 2:44
02. Tight Fittin' Jeans 3:09
03. Truck Drivin Buddy 2:46
04. He Went To Paris 3:53
05. If There Is Any Heaven 3:53
06. Please Take This Cup 4:31
07. No Way To Reach Nirvana 5:44
08. End Of The Line 2:36
09. Cowboys Are Common As Sin 5:18
10. Soft Lights And Hard Country Music 2:49
11. I Appreciate That 3:57
12. And So Our Song Ends 4:18
13. Living With A Lie 4:06
14. Letter To Stoney 4:17

Runtime..: 54:01 min

.. R E L E A S E .. 
.. i N F O .. 

Watermelon Slim is an American 
original. A quick glance at his 
biography would tell you as much. 
Already one of the best modern 
bluesmen around, on his past two 
albums- recorded in Nashville- he 
has shown an increasing interest in 
country music. And on his latest 
Ringers, Slim covers Conway Twitty 
and Moe Bandy in addition to a lot 
of great originals. 

Things begin with the roadhouse 
honky tonk number "Good Old Boys 
Never Change". Maybe, judging by 
the title, I'm being a little too 
obvious here but the song is a 
great outlaw country number in the 
style of Waylon in the mid-'70s. 
The lyrics celebrate Southern life 
and heritage in Slim's signature 
weathered voice. 

Next up is a cover of Conway 
Twitty's "Tight Fittin' Jeans". 
This version is harder-edged and 
overall just more believable than 
the original. I'm a fan of Conway 
and very few could perform love 
songs as well as he could but his 
country soul-type voice could never 
pull off material like this and it 
fits into Slim's overall persona 
and repertoire as if written for 
him. 

On the next track, "Truck Drivin' 
Buddy", Watermelon Slim revisits 
his past as both a truck driver and 
a pure bluesman. He plays some 
excellent acoustic slide guitar 
here and the lyrics concern missing 
one's significant other when on the 
road. "You wanna call her at every 
truck stop", he says, "You wanna 
cry at every lonely jukebox." 

"He Went to Paris" is a cover of 
Jimmy Buffett of all people. I have 
not heard the original, but I am 
guessing that it wasn't the Delta 
blues number heard here. It is not 
the best track here, but it is 
further proof that when it comes to 
music, it's all connected 
somewhere. 

"If There is Any Heaven" is a 
stripped-down blues rock track with 
excellent slide guitar (as there is 
throughout the album). The lyrics 
are at once pessimistic and 
uplifting. Here's just one example: 
"If there's any salvation, I hope 
there's something left to 
save/Cause the weapons we are 
brandishing could blow us all to 
hell/And if there's any person can 
turn this Earth from one mass 
grave/Why don't he use his power to 
make a peaceful place to dwell?". 
But later he tells us to "rejoice 
in the darkness" and that "peace 
will wear the crown". 

This is followed by "Please Take 
this Cup", a somber country ballad 
with a harrowing tale of alcoholism 
("I've lost jobs and a wife/Damn 
near lost my life/When the bottle 
was my only friend"). This is a 
real change of pace from most of 
the album and shows Slim's ability 
to adapt to any style. 

The next track, "No Way to Reach 
Nirvana" is perhaps the strangest 
track here and one of the oddest 
tributes to somebody I have heard. 
It begins with a late-'60s-styled 
blues rock guitar lick and then 
Slim's voice singing: "I read my 
Rolling Stone today/Thought I'd see 
what they would say/Bout a pop star 
that blew his head off with a 
shotgun". Later he says, "Media and 
the MTV didn't care what he tried 
to be/Good or bad, they made 
millions off him somehow". Later he 
warns the listener that suicide is 
"No way to reach Nirvana". Despite 
being weird and despite the fact 
that a song about Kurt Cobain 
belongs here no more than Willie 
Nelson belongs on the stage of the 
Metropolitan Opera, somehow it 
works. And, believe it or not, it's 
even one of the albums best. 

"The End of the Line" is a 
Creedence-like roots rocker about 
the death of the American railroad. 
Not one of the strongest here, but, 
then again, nothing here could 
really be called bad by any means. 

He switches back to the country 
mode with the honky tonk ballad 
"Cowboys Are Common as Sin". The 
song is set, like many other great 
country songs, is set in a bar. The 
rough-around-the-edges persona is 
once again at work here and it once 
again results in a throwback to the 
glory days of Waylon and Willie and 
also results in the album's best 
track. 

The next track "Soft Lights and 
Country Music" is a cover of Moe 
Bandy and he does a wonderful job 
of it, even inserting a little bit 
of Merle Haggard influence. 
Drinking songs like this are what 
mainstream country music used to be 
all about and Slim shows here that 
he is as capable of preserving that 
tradition as he is at preserving 
acoustic blues. And Paul Franlin's 
steel guitar really makes the 
track. 

"I Appreciate That" is a great 
blues song in the same vein 
lyrically as Ray Charles' "I Got a 
Woman" but musically it is heavier 
and also display's Slim's talents 
on the harmonica. 

"And So Our Song Ends" is a ballad 
about how he "left my wife for my 
lover" and this one contains a 
(very) slight R&B influence, 
particularly in the rhythm section 
and background singers. But at it's 
heart is a classic-styled country 
weeper. 

The country rock ballad "Living 
with a Lie" is also about cheating, 
but it is a much better track than 
it's predecessor mainly due to its 
lyrics and arrangement. Maybe it 
will be a little too produced for 
some people, but personally I think 
it is one of the best on the album. 

The final cut is "Letter to 
Stoney", a honky tonk rocker that 
ends the album on a positive note 
after the previous two melancholy 
tracks. The song deals with his 
struggles to play on stage with one 
of his idols and how he "messed it 
up". And he says, "If I can't play 
with you, I'm always gonna be your 
fan." 

To sum it up, this album 
illustrates what all great American 
folk music is about. And if it 
occasionally falls short of being a 
masterpiece, that's ok too, because 
none of it is bad, as I said 
before. At times the album could be 
classified as honky tonk, at other 
times blues, and occasionally even 
as Southern rock. But whatever 
label you want to put on it what 
you really have here is 14 tunes of 
great American music (from a 
Canadian blues label, no less) and 
that is the only thing that 
matters. Enjoy. 

.. G R O U P .. 
.. i N F O .. 

.. contact .. 
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