Watermelon Slim and the Workers

The Wheel Man

Northernblues Music

Watermelon Slim, aka Bill Homans, has done it again. The Wheel Man is another superb blues album from a stray who's adopted Oklahoma. There's nothing not to dig about all 14 original tracks. They revere the genre but escape weariness of repetitious formula. In large part that's because Homans is an important American writer. Interrupted one afternoon in 2005 by a call to schedule an interview, he was reading Shakespeare. Homans' lyrics draw on a life rich with experience from war time Saigon to sinful Cincinnati. The title track alludes to many years balling the jack as a cross-country tractor and trailer jockey. Homan's combo are solid senders. This gem was cut by master recorder Trent Bell at Bell Labs in Norman. Magic Slim makes a guest appearance courtesy of Blind Pig Records. In the liner notes, Homans thanks ex-wives for giving him the blues. Indeed, the fair sex inspire some of his best tunes. From "Peaches": " Deep in the heart of this dirty old city/ my Peaches dances and she shakes her pretties/ I met her there and my life was changed/ I cant get that girl out of my brain." Snag The Wheel Man and a take a blues spin on the wild side.

-- Doug Hill