Driftin' Slim (February 24, 1919 – September 15, 1977)
was an African American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player.
Born Elmon Mickle, he learned at a young age the guitar
and the harmonica, his main instrument, under the very strong influence of John
Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson whom he met several times. This influence
is particularly prevalent in his playing and his repertoire (many titles come
from Sonny Boy's songbook).
By the mid-'40s, he was playing the local juke joint
circuit with Sonny Boy Williamson II and King Biscuit Boy drummer Peck Curtis
while doing radio stints with stations KDRK and KGHI. Living in Little Rock and
working for the local railroad company, Elmon formed his own blues band with
such great musicians like Junior Brooks, Baby Face Turner, Sunny Blair... and
appeared quite often in local radio programmes, sometime alongside Country
Music harp masters Lonnie Glosson and Wayne Raney.
In 1951, he recorded
his first sides for the Modern label. ‘My Little Machine’ was released as the
first Driftin Slim record, while others were issued under his real name, and
others under the name of Junior Brooks, the guitarist in the band. In 1952, Ike
Turner, then a young talent scout for Joe Bihari and Sam Phillips went to
Little Rock and decided to record Mickle,. The records have gained a worldwide
reputation today but at that time they went almost nowhere and Mickle/ Slim
moved to California in 1957, seeking better paid job opportunities.
There he will record sporadically for small outfits,
sometimes his own and very often paying himself the studio fares and under
different names like his own and T-Model Slim. His recordings were released on
the - amongst others - Modern, RPM, Blue Horizon, Styletone, Milestone, Kent,
and Flyright record labels.
In the mid-50s, Slim relocated to Los Angeles, where he
put his harp in a neck rack, got a hi-hat and kick drum, then took up guitar to
play as a one-man band. His first recordings on the West coast were for the
Elco label, who released his version of TV Slim‘s ‘Flatfoot Sam’ in 1959 which
enjoyed a small local airplay.. But for the most part Mickle played for private
parties and rarely appeared in clubs. And for economical reasons, he performed
mostly as a one-man band, playing harp with a rack, guitar and a kit drums with
his feet.
The Folk/Blues revival gave Slim the chance to play a lot
of student coffee houses and campus parties, and he recorded several singles
for small labels, often under the name ‘Model-T Slim’. It will take the
interest of a bunch of young local blues fans, Henry Vestine and Bob Hite (from
the blues-rock band Canned Heat), Bruce Bromberg and Frank Scott for Elmon to
be "rediscovered" in 1966. He then appeared in several venues,
recorded a whole album for Pete Welding.
When he finally cut an album for Milestone Records,
‘Somebody Hoo-Doo’d the Hoo-Doo Man?’ in 1968, several of the tracks featured a
full Blues Band. However, this proved to be Slim’s swan-song as declining
health forced his retirement soon afterwards. He had to tour Europe but a bad
cancer prevented him to be able to do so and when he passed away in 1977 in Los
Angeles, California on September 17th, 1977 a chapter of American music -- that of the
one-man band -- had virtually died with him.
(Info edited from Wikipedia, All Music, All about the blues.com)
2 comments:
For a comprehensive collection of Driftimg Slim recordings go here:
Part 1 http://www20.zippyshare.com/v/7LO3mIB0/file.html
Part2 http://www20.zippyshare.com/v/DHPxgeXs/file.html
A big thank you to Gerard Herzhaft @ http://jukegh.blogspot.co.uk for the active links (but not for long!!)
Track listings are in pdf file in Part 1
Sounds interesting. Can't wait to listen. Thank you for sharing Bob.
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