L.A. Beat

I was under the impression William  Homans, best known as Watermelon Slim  was going to retire after last year’s CD, so I was overjoyed to see he is back with his fifth CD for Northern Blues called ‘Ringers.’
The bluesman is still on a country cowboy kick, so ‘Ringers’ has plenty of honky tonk piano and steel guitar  and a touch of  violin. But his marble mouthed, Dr. John style southern drawl is as well suited to country music as it is to the blues, plus there is still some bluesy slide guitar spread throughout.
He starts off with an upbeat country number called ‘Tight Fitting Jeans.’
He kicks the blues into high gear with ’End of the Line,’ which is a foot stomper about railroads.
He also has a very cool  song/ramble about Kurt Cobain and suicide  called ‘No Way To Reach Nirvana,’which features some subdued slide guitar and an upbeat piano groove.
He has several slower numbers sprinkled in throughout that, as well as some cool, groovy mid tempo numbers like ‘I Appreciate That.’
The piano work  makes a lot of the  songs on the CD as does Watermelon Slim’s distinctive drawl.
This isn’t the country you’d hear on Top 40 radio, but it should be. It’s more real and down to earth. Watermelon Slim sells the whole beer drinking, honky tonking cowboy vibe as he comes by His cowboy roots honestly, being based out of Norman, Oklahoma
He has some great song titles like  ‘Soft Lights and Hard Country,’ and one of my favourite slower numbers, ‘Cowboys are As Common as Sin.’
Another slower number ‘He Went to Paris,’ has an acoustic Canned Heat influence, which has some pretty harrowing lyrics. It begins as a slower number than picks up the tempo.
 While I like Watermelon Slim’s straight ahead blues numbers a lot more than his country music, overall, this CD ends up being such an addictive listen, you can’t stop hitting the replay button. Especially when lines like ‘The whole world is pounding at death’s door,’ just leap out of a pretty sedate sounding song like ‘If There is Any Heaven’ which has a lot of dark lyrics.
He ends the CD with a fun upbeat country number ‘Good Old Boys Never Change,’ which makes you want to hear the whole CD over again.
— By Richard Amery L.A Beat Editor
CD: Ringers
Artist: Watermelon Slim
Genre: country/blues
Record Label: Northern Blues