Water(melon) You Doing this New Year’s Eve?

A funny old blues dude named Watermelon Slim (real name Bob Homans) talked with Pitch contributor Saby Reyes-Kulkarni recently. We weren’t able to run this in print due to all our astounding year-end wrap-up material, but it was too good not to at least run in pixels. Slim plays Knucklehead’s on New Year’s Eve with Rich Berry, Billy Ebeling and Lee McBee. Go here for details.

Slim Seedy

By Saby Reyes-Kulkarni

Every now and again, a musician comes along for whom the word “character” seems specifically invented to describe — Dr. John, Bootsy Collins, Moondog, Leon Redbone…the list goes on. Not only can Oklahoma-based blues guitarist Watermelon Slim hold his own on that list, he may very well rival those who are routinely mentioned at the top.

Watermelon Slim has the look of a man who likes big fruits.

To cover Slim’s much-publicized background would take too long and take the spotlight away from the man himself. Vietnam and Iraq war protester, academic, teacher, blues historian, environmental activist, watermelon farmer, heart-attack survivor, and a longtime trucker who put in his two weeks with the trucking company only recently, Slim is one of the few modern blues artists out there whose albums sizzle with heat and passion.

The Pitch recently came across the good fortune of having Slim wax poetic on a number of topics. Suffice it to say the man has a ramblin’ man’s way with words and doesn’t hold back. Without further ado, a necessarily streamlined transcript of our conversation follows…