should sound like. Their emphasis on ensemble playing and a humongous repertoire that allegedly ranges upwards of a few hundred songs give the towering guitarist's live performances an endearing off-the-cuff quality: you never know what obscurity he'll pull out of his oversized hat next. Born
on August 7, 1937, the Mississippi native was forced to give up playing the piano when he lost his little finger in a cotton gin mishap. Boyhood pal
's no longer slim).
first came to Chicago in 1955, but found that breaking into the competitive local blues circuit was a tough proposition. Although he managed to secure a steady gig for a while with
' band (Mr. Pitiful & the Teardrops),
wasn't good enough to progress into the upper ranks of Chicago bluesdom.
So he retreated to Mississippi for a spell to hone his chops. When he returned to Chicago in 1965 (with brothers
Nick and
Lee Baby as his new rhythm section),
Slim's detractors were quickly forced to change their tune. Utilizing the
Teardrops name and holding onto his
Magic Slim handle, the big man cut a couple of 45s for Ja-Wes and established himself as a formidable force on the South side. His guitar work dripped vibrato-enriched nastiness and his roaring vocals were as gruff and uncompromising as anyone's on the scene. All of a sudden, the recording floodgates opened up for
the Teardrops in 1979 after they cut four tunes for Alligator's
Living Chicago Blues anthology series. Since then, a series of tough-as-nails albums for Rooster Blues, Alligator, and a slew for the Austrian Wolf logo have fattened
Slim's discography considerably.
The Teardrops weathered a potentially devastating change when longtime second guitarist
John Primer cut his own major-label debut for Code Blue, but with
Slim and bass-wielding brother
Nick Holt still on board, it's doubtful the quartet's overall sound will change dramatically in
Primer's absence. In 1996,
Slim signed with Blind Pig and cut some of the most-celebrated albums of his career, including
Scufflin' in 1996,
Black Tornado in 1998,
Snakebite in 2000, and
Blue Magic in 2002. A live recording taped in 2005 at the Sierra Nevada Brewery was released that same year on both DVD and CD as
Anything Can Happen.
Tin Pan Alley, a set of recordings made between 1992 and 1998 in Chicago and Europe, was released in 2006 by Austria's Wolf Records.
Midnight Blues appeared in 2008, followed by Raising the Bar in 2010. Bad Boy, a collection of covers given the
Magic Slim makeover, hit the streets in 2012 when
Slim was 75 years old.
–
Bill Dahl & Al Campbell, Rovi