One of the mysteries of the music business is how it is possible for two different people can get up on stage and play the same type of music with one of them sounding contrived and false, and the other like the music is coming from some place deep in their soul. Some people put it down to life experience while according to others it's just simply a matter of age.
But I've heard twenty-year-olds sing with a passion and conviction that sounds like it's coming from under a mountain of burdens, and one only need look at Pat Boone to show that age and experience have nothing to do with the amount of anyone's soul. I've never been able to figure that one out, but it is obvious that some people open their mouths to sing and from the first note out of their mouth you understand what it means to bear witness.
Watermelon Slim is such a performer. The moment you hear his voice you can feel the depth of the emotion that he brings to his music. It doesn't matter if it's just your standard woman done, done me wrong Blues tune, you know that he's speaking not about some one night stand that he had at a truck stop, but about universal loves that have gone bad. Every guy and every girl who's ever been treated bad by some pig of the opposite sex can relate to what he's saying.
On his latest release from Northern Blues Records, The Wheel Man, he doesn't just sing about love gone bad or how fine it can be when it is fine, he sings about everything under the sun that's bound to strike a chord with people everywhere.
You don't have to have worked at a sawmill to get what "Sawmill Holler" is about, all you ever have to have done is work any job where the purpose is just to earn the money that puts the bread on the table and keeps the wolf from the door. Maybe it doesn't hurt that Watermelon Slim has worked as a long haul trucker, a sawmill hand, a journalist, and more jobs of that kind than is good for a human being, including the hardest one of all, a soldier.
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Article comments
1 - tim
Pat Boone has survived for many years. He didn't go the way of Elvis. He married, had a family and has had a career for how many years? He is a sucess because of his soul. He is a Christian who has loved his hollywood friends even though some ridiculed him . Pat has soul. He may not be your cup of tea, but he has deep soul. Being good hasn't been easy, I can assure you. Hell, I'm not. In fact I'm gay. But you know I can respect his life. He has kept singing, kept recording and his last album was with black artists. There again it shows the versatility of this man. Pat Boone will never get the respect he deserves on this life, but probably he doesn't expect it or need it because he is a success. He will be remembered long after so many other artists. If he had died young doing drugs he would be remembered in a better referece. Yeah, Pat Boone has soul. HIs music is not on my top charts, but man I repect him. He never sold out. I can't say the same.
2 - MCH
So when is Boone going to give all the black performers a cut of the millions he made covering their work?