(This is part one of a two part interview with Watermelon Slim – read part two tomorrow at this same bat channel – Blogcritics.org)
Four weeks ago I had barely heard of him, three weeks ago I read about his album The Wheel Man in a newsletter I get delivered to my email inbox and was interested enough to request a copy from his label Northern Blues.
The CD came in my mail along with another on Thursday of last week. From the moment I put The Wheel Man in my player on Friday I haven't let a day go by without listening to it. On Sunday I decided to contact his publicity people and see about an interview. They emailed me right back telling me to contact Watermelon Slim and then send him the questions I wanted to ask him.
After a quick flurry of emails between the two of us I sat down and wrote of the questions you're about to read and sent them off to him first thing Monday morning. By five thirty the answers you're about to read were waiting in my in box.
Talk about your whirlwind romances. It's not often a musician, will excite me that much as both a person and a musician that I will take those steps that quickly. The fact Watermelon Slim responded so quickly says to me that my timing was right and this was meant to happen this way.
Slim says he doesn't believe in coincidence and neither do I, which means everything you're about to read is just the way it should be, the questions and the answers. Two days from now I might have asked different questions, or he might not have been so available to answer so quickly. Who knows and who cares what happened today. What matters and what happened was that I was privileged to ask a person of integrity questions about himself and his art, and because of that we are all going to lucky enough to hopefully get to the man called Watermelon Slim a little better.
Sometimes the force of a person's character is so strong that you can hear his voice through the words on the page. Maybe it's because I've been listening to him sing these past three or four days on a regular basis but I swear each time I read these words you're about to it's like I'm talking to him in person his voice is so clear.
There are very few individuals left in this cookie cutter world we live in, as more and more it's becoming controlled by marketing executives and image consultants. Which makes people like Watermelon Slim all the more damn precious.
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