No Paid Holidays
At least once in every man's life everything seems to come
together magically. When the road leading to such times is long and
grueling, the zenith becomes exponentially more rewarding. Bill
Homans a.k.a. Watermelon Slim is the extraordinary wheel man behind
this redemption story road trip.
In December 2006 Watermelon Slim garnered a record-tying six
2007 Blues Music Award nominations for Artist, Entertainer, Album,
Band, Song, and Traditional Album of the Year. Only the likes of B.B.
King, Buddy Guy and Robert Cray have ever landed six. His 2006
self-titled release was ranked #1 in MOJO Magazine's 2006 Top Blues
CDs, won the 2006 Independent Music Award for Blues Album of the
Year, hit #1 on the Living Blues Radio Chart, debuted at #13 on the
Billboard Blues Radio Chart ahead of both Robert Cray and North
Mississippi Allstars, and won the Blues Critic Award for 2006 Album
of the Year.
In April, 2007 Watermelon Slim and The Workers released The
Wheel Man, his second for NorthernBlues Music and his fourth album
in five years. Jerry Wexler, a huge Watermelon Slim fan after
hearing Slim's 2005 self-titled release, eagerly offered to write
the liner notes upon listening to early tracks saying Slim "is a
one-of-a-kind pickin' 'n'n singing Okie dynamo." The CD hit #1 on
the Living Blues Radio Charts, #2 on the Roots Music Blues Charts
and debuted in the Top 10 in Billboard's Blues charts.
The Memphis Flyer led it's terrific CD review with the question
"Does anyone in modern pop music have a more intriguing biography
than Bill "Watermelon Slim" Homans?" Slim was born in Boston and
raised in North Carolina listening to his maid sing John Lee Hooker
and other blues songs around the house. His father was a progressive
attorney and ex-freedom rider and his brother is now a classical
musician. Slim dropped out of Middlebury College to enlist for
Vietnam. While laid up in a Vietnam hospital bed he taught himself
upside-down left-handed slide guitar on a $5 balsawood model using a
triangle pick cut from a rusty coffee can top and his Army issued
Zippo lighter as the slide.
Returning home an fervent anti-war activist, Slim first
appeared on the music scene with the release of the only known
record by a veteran during the Vietnam War. The project was Merry
Airbrakes, a 1973 protest tinged LP with tracks Country Joe McDonald
later covered.
In the following 30 plus years Slim has been a truck driver,
forklift operator, sawmiller (where he lost part of his finger),
firewood salesman, collection agent, and even officiated funerals.
At times he got by as a small time criminal. At one point he was
forced to flee Boston where he played peace rallies, sit-ins and
rabbleroused musically with the likes of Bonnie Raitt.
He ended up farming watermelons in Oklahoma - hence his stage
name and current home base. Somewhere in those decades Slim
completed two undergrad degrees in history and journalism.
While roommates, buddies and musical partner with the heavy
drinking Henry 'Sunflower' Vestine of Canned Heat, Slim was able to
finish a masters degree and member of Mensa, the social networking
group reserved for members with certified genius IQs.
Throughout his storied past, it has always been truck driving
that Slim returned to. While trucking and hauling industrial waste
for thankless bosses at hourly wages to support himself and his
family, his id yearned for release of the musician inside. Many of
Slim's current songs began a cappella in his rig keeping him awake
and entertained.
In 2002 Slim suffered a near fatal heart attack. His brush with
death gave him a new perspective on mortality, direction and life
ambitions. He says, "Everything I do now has a sharper pleasure to
it. I've lived a fuller life than most people could in two. If I go
now, I've got a good education, I've lived on three continents, and
I've played music with a bunch of immortal blues players. I've
fought in a war and against a war. I've seen an awful lot and I've
done an awful lot. If my plane went down tomorrow, I'd go out on
top."
If it's any indication from raving reviews and features in
Guitar One, HARP, Blues Revue, Toronto Star, Chicago Sun-Times, NPR,
House of Blues Radio Hour, BBC's World Service Programme, XM
Satellite Radio and others, Watermelon Slim may have finally settled
in on his chosen vocation.
