Watermelon Slim - Up Close & Personal

Watermelon Slim (his real name is Bill Homans) strips things down to basics on Up Close & Personal, a move that brings out the raw, impassioned intensity of his songs, and brings him as close as he's ever gotten to a fresh contemporary vision of country blues. The instrumentation here is sparse, usually just Slim alone with his National Steel guitar (a couple tracks feature his fevered harmonica style, and on the moving "Bridgebuilder" he plays a kalimba thumb piano), and at times he sounds like a looser, more unhinged John Hammond, albeit with a more personal vision and an unyielding blue-collar view of the world. Read More