Oklahoma Rock Newsblog

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be counting down the Top 100 Oklahoma Albums of the 2000s. Every weekday, we will unveil another ten Oklahoma albums that helped shape the way Oklahoma music is heard by the outside world.

We asked three dozen musicians, fans and journalists for their opinions on the top albums of the past decade. With their guidance and our own opinions, we compiled what we hope is a decent and fair list.

Hopefully, there’s a good bit of reflection, discovery and enjoyment when listening to these albums through Lala (when available). Enjoy!

40. Matthew Alvin Brown - Rainbow Around the Sun (2006)

Purchase: PayPal

DOWNLOAD: “New York City Girls”

“Regardless of what one thinks of concept albums, Brown’s first solo outing, “Rainbow Around the Sun,” is not pretentious. It is track after track of engaging and colorful pop songs that guide the listener through a story, rather than dragging them.” - Charles Martin (Oklahoma Gazette contributing writer and author of “The Dominant Hand”)

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Today we bring you two songs about 9/11 by Oklahomans - Watermelon Slim’s “Red, White & Blues” and Tom Paxton’s “The Bravest”.

DOWNLOAD: Watermelon Slim - “Red, White & Blues”

DOWNLOAD: Tom Paxton - “The Bravest”

Read the stories behind the songs after the jump.

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The new issue of Oklahoma Today officially hits newsstands tomorrow (although you can find it already out in some places). This issue is a special Oklahoma rock and roll collector’s edition, released to coincide with the Oklahoma History Center’s “Another Hot Oklahoma Night” exhibit.

“This special issue of Oklahoma Today captures the spirit of creativity and cultural vitality of our great state. As readers will discover, rock and roll is not just music. It is a reflection of the last fifty years of our history. I think many people will be both surprised and inspired by this historic issue of a historic magazine.” - Bob Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma History Center

The issue features a wealth of Oklahoma rock history, covering bands, venues, albums, record stores, fans and more. Here’s some quick hits on this issue’s features:

State of Rock by Jake Adamson - featuring the biggest Oklahoma names to top the charts in the last fifty years.

Raising Cain’s by Tom Lindley - featuring the rich history of Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa.

King Leon by Tom Nawrocki - featuring the Master of Space and Time, Leon Russell

Fanatic - a portfolio featuring the fan’s perspective

50 Rock by Ryan LaCroix - a master list of fifty essential Oklahoma rock and roll albums

Burgers, Drugs & Rock and Roll by Steffie Corcoran - featuring VZD’s Restaurant & Club in Oklahoma City, known for its food and the bands it brings in

Hit the Road - features on Another Hot Oklahoma Night, Two Frogs Grill in Ardmore, concert festivals and local independent record stores

Okies - features on the red dirt genre, concert promoter advice and Wanda Jackson’s rock and roll wisdom

Culture - features on ACM@UCO, Julius Shulman’s photography, the Oklahoma Film and Music Office and some of the state’s best venues for live music

The Rock-and-Roll issue of Oklahoma Today is currently available at Border’s and Barnes & Noble and can be purchased via phone at 800.777.1793 or online at oklahomatoday.com.

After the jump, read the full press release announcing the issue.

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Watermelon Slim & the Workers and Elvin Bishop have each received four Blues Music Awards nominations this year.

Slim earned two individual nominations:

BB King Entertainer of the Year
Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year

…while he and The Workers were nominated for:

Band of the Year
Contemporary Blues Album of the Year - No Paid Holidays

Slim has racked up an amazing 17 Blues Award nominations in the past four years.

Bishop, who was nominated for a Grammy earlier this month, also received four nominations:

Album of the Year - The Blues Rolls On
Contemporary Blues Album of the Year - The Blues Rolls On
Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year
Song of the Year - “The Blues Rolls On”

The 30th edition of the Blues Music Awards will take place on May 7, 2009 at the Cook Convention Center in Memphis, Tennessee. The complete list of 2009 Blues Music Awards nominees can be found here.

Today we bring you one of the more identifiable songs about 9/11 - Watermelon Slim’s “Red, White & Blues”, off his 2003 album Big Shoes to Fill.

DOWNLOAD: Watermelon Slim - “Red, White & Blues”

Below is an excerpt from BluesWax’s interview with Slim, regarding the song:

BW: The most moving song I’ve heard written about 9/11 is your “Red, White and Blues” off your previous Southern records release; some of the best descriptions of all of our reactions to the event in that song. Tell us about most folk’s reaction to that song live?

Slim: “The Red, White and Blues” was written two days after the attack, and Fried Okra Jones first performed it the second week after that at the Stillwater Bikes ‘n Blues Festival. Lotta Vietnam vets in that crowd, of course, and it went over very big with them, given the atmosphere of the time. Naturally, much has changed since then. Our president has launched us into exactly the wrong war at the wrong time. He seems to have completely forgotten that it was al-Qaida that struck us in the World Trade Center twice, the Pentagon, the U.S.S. Cole, and plenty of other provocations. I am going to have to write some sort of sequel that stands up well to Willie Nelson’s “Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?” I always make sure to say, either before or after, “God Bless the United States of America.” That seems to make almost anything politically difficult go down easier. I’m not being cynical about it; I love my country, I volunteered for Vietnam service. But I will never tolerate liars and greedheads, and that’s what’s in the White House now.

The new album from Watermelon Slim and the Workers, No Paid Holidays, is available today!

Order the new album online at WatermelonSlim.com, NorthernBlues Records or Amazon.com.

You can listen to samples from the album here.

It is rare in today’s market to find a performer that holds tradition so dear, and performs the music so well, that it comes across as something totally new and unique. The honesty is there in abundance and so is the joy of listening to a band and frontman that understands the Blues better than most contemporary artists today. If you want to hear some real Blues, performed the way it should be, look and listen no further.
- Barrelhouse Blues

A blistering , heartfelt set that goes someplace totally unexpected, you can call it blues, but it’s now become Watermelon Slim music. A wild ride that you really have to take.
- Midwest Record

Watermelon Slim continues to be one of the most original and vital voices currently working in the blues. Expect to hear more from him and No Paid Holidays during the 2009 Blues Music Awards.
- Blues Bytes

The album was recorded in November 2007 at Bell Labs Recording Studio in Norman, Oklahoma (produced by Chris Wick and engineered and mixed by Trent Bell). “Bubba’s Blues” features Lee Roy Parnell on electric slide guitar and David Maxwell plays the acoustic piano on “Blues For Howard” and “Bubba’s Blues”.

Tracklisting after the jump.

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Watermelon Slim & the Workers have received six Blues Music Awards nominations for the second year in a row.

Slim was nominated for:

BB King Entertainer of the Year
Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year

…and, along with his band The Workers, was nominated for:

Album of the Year - The Wheel Man
Band of the Year
Song of the Year - “The Wheel Man”
Contemporary Blues Album of the Year - The Wheel Man

The 2008 Blues Music Awards will take place on May 8 at the Grand Casino Event Center in Tunica Resorts, Mississippi. The complete list of 2008 Blues Music Awards nominees can be found here.

DOWNLOAD:
Watermelon Slim - “Oklahoma Blues”

To help celebrate Oklahoma’s Centennial, we will be counting down the Top 100 Oklahoma Musicians over the next four weeks, leading up to Oklahoma’s Statehood Day on November 16. Every weekday, we’ll unveil another five Oklahoma musicians or bands that helped shape the way Oklahoma music is viewed from the outside world.

80. Watermelon Slim (lives in Norman)

Vietnam vet Bill ‘Watermelon Slim’ Homans is the blues. The left-handed delta-blues performer spent most of his adult life working blue-collar jobs (truck driver, fork-lift operator, watermelon farmer), getting an education (B.A. from University of Oregon; M.A. from Oklahoma State University) and dabbling in music. Following a 2002 heart attack, Slim pursued music full-time and it paid off. In 2005, Slim was nominated for the prestigious W.C. Handy Award for “Best New Artist Debut”. In 2007, his six W.C. Handy Award nominations tied a record shared by B.B. King and Robert Cray.

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From the Kalamazoo Gazette:

Bluesman Watermelon Slim talks politics, death and getting his wrist broken
by Mark Wedel/Special to the Gazette July 12, 2007 09:00AM

Blues is a genre where life experience matters, and Watermelon Slim has lived a life of nothing but experience.

During a recent interview via cell phone, Slim was driving for his band, The Workers. Their truck will arrive in time for their set at 8:35 p.m. Friday for this year’s Kalamazoo Blues Festival, which runs through Saturday at the Arcadia Creek Festival Place, downtown.

“I’m in Hannibal, Mo., home of Tom Sawyer and Mark Twain,” said Slim, with his combined East Coast (grew up in Massachusetts and North Carolina) and Oklahoma (where he’s lived in latter decades) accent. “We’re just passing through. We’re havin’ the hammer down, and high-ballin’ up to Des Moines up from St. Louis. … Due to a clerical error, I’m having to go a little bit quicker than I’d ordinarily want to go. But I’m the man to do it.”

He does his own driving?

“Oh yeah.”

Did we even have to ask? Slim was a truck driver for about 20 years before he quit in 2004 to be a full-time bluesman. He has also been a member of Mensa (IQ around 140), has a masters in history from Oklahoma State University, was a watermelon farmer, worked in a sawmill and worked with John Kerry in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

DOWNLOAD:
Watermelon Slim - Blue Freightliner

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The following is an interview of Watermelon Slim by Richard Marcus, a blogger and reviewer at Leap In The Dark:

Four weeks ago I had barely heard of him, three weeks ago I read about his album The Wheel Man in a newsletter I get delivered to my email inbox and was interested enough to request a copy from his label Northern Blues.

The CD came in my mail along with another on Thursday of last week. From the moment I put The Wheel Man in my player on Friday I haven’t let a day go by without listening to it. On Sunday I decided to contact his publicity people and see about an interview. They emailed me right back telling me to contact Watermelon Slim and then send him the questions I wanted to ask him.

After a quick flurry of emails between the two of us I sat down and wrote of the questions you’re about to read and sent them off to him first thing Monday morning. By five thirty the answers you’re about to read were waiting in my inbox.

Talk about your whirlwind romances. It’s not often a musician, will excite me that much as both a person and a musician that I will take those steps that quickly. The fact Watermelon Slim responded so quickly says to me that my timing was right and this was meant to happen this way.

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