Search - Guitar Slim Jr. :: Nothing Nice

Second album from Grammy-nominated guitarist & son of Guitar Slim shows him playing contemporary/urban/soul blues, including his father's hit The Things I Used To Do.Living with the blues may be an understatement. There is nothing nice about living the blues. When you talk to blues musicians, you can tell which ones actually live the blues by the lines on their faces, the callouses on their hands or the scars found everywhere else. These are the results of years of hard drinking and hard living. Those who show the signs truely live the blues. They stand up there under the hot lights and as the sweat runs down their faces, they play from the soul. There are only a handful of these blues warriors left, and I'm about to tell you about one - one who comes from real blues blood! His name is Guitar Slim Jr. Born Rodney Armstrong, Slim is the son of southern blues legend Eddie 'Guitar Slim' Jones, a trailblazer of the electric blues guitar best known for his powerful 1954 rendition of Things I Used To Do. This, along with other songs he wrote, have been done as covers by an assortment of blues artists including Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Copeland, Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Frank Zappa, to name a few. Unfortunately, Guitar Slim's recording career lasted only 8 years, and he died in 1959 at the age of 32. His premature death may have robbed the music world of a future great artist, equal to BB King or Ray Charles. He lived hard and burned out fast. But today, from those ashes, a new blues legend has risen - his son, Guitar Slim Jr., with blues blood flowing hot in his veins. Currently, Guitar Slim Jr. is blazing his own trail in the music world. With his new release, Nothing Nice featuring the Memphis Horns, Slim cuts new ground while playing some of his father's old pieces on the disk. His gritty guitar sound is punctuated by a curve of sweetness. He has a style all his own, threading R&B with a dash of soul and a deep twist of blues. The jazz sound is never too far out of reach, reflecting nearly two decades of work in blues clubs all over New Orleans. Recorded live in the studio, with only one or two takes and a minimum of overdubs, the songs are recorded the way Slim sounds when performing at a club deep in the gut of New Orleans. Band Members... Guitar Slim Jr., Art Wheeler, Douglas T. Potter, Jack Burnette, The Memphis Horns, Wayne Jackson, Andrew Love. -George Wayne