The Paris Slim CD: Bleedin Heart
The Paris Slim CD: Bleedin Heart |
CD release date: Oct 1, 1996
The album opens with a collaboration with long-time friend Joe Louis Walker, who also co-produced. Walker contributes a jaw-dropping bottleneck guitar part to this electric country blues piece, which reflects the general direction of Paris Slim's current work.
Another original song, "If You Dig Me...", rocks to a West Side boogie guitar riff over a country two-step and features the lead guitar of Paris Slim's mentor and most direct influence, Texas bluesman Sonny Rhodes. The songwriter on this one is former Robert Cray band-member Tim Kaihatsu who also offers the lyrics to "Too Hot In Here", a swamp/funk rocker featuring the grungy alto saxophone of The Lords Of Outland's Rent Romus.
In a more traditional vein is Slim's tribute to the great Chicago slide guitarists, most particularly Hound Dog Taylor, on the ripping "Doggin' The Dog". On the latter, Slim used Hound Dog's very own Teisco 4 pick-up guitar and applied an anarchistic mix, showcasing the hard-swinging rhythm section and Steve Lucky's merciless piano attitude.
"Hit The Road And Ride", with its rumba-with-a-back-beat groove and Magic Sam-influenced tremolo guitar, is possibly the first blues song ever recorded to deal with the artists's resentment of the Answering Machine. As we get near the end of the album, the mood becomes resolutely darker.
The obscure Johnny Otis-Mel Walker song "The Candle's Burnin' Low" receives a swamp blues treatment, where the true star is Kelvin Dixon, for his offering of the most uninhibited drum track ever put down this side of Ted Harvey.
The primal, hypnotic "No Escapin' From The Blues" descends directly from John Lee Hooker's historical Detroit works of the 1950's. A hookeresque guitar moans on one side of the track over a one-chord drone, while the Buddy Guy/Freddie King influenced lead guitar answers the vocal. The mighty rhythm section of veteran blues bassist Johnny Ace and drummer John Hanes steals the show here, furnishing the organic, hard-rocking, Mississippi Delta-meets-The-Jimi Hendrix Experience beat.
The album closes with an rowdier,alternate mix of "If You Dig Me..." featuring a different Sonny Rhodes guitar solo, complete with over-dubbed crowd noises.
How
do I get a copy?
Audio Samples are available
in the
Globe Records Eclectic Music Catalog!
