Born on August 22, 1923, in Leasburg, North Carolina, the blues guitarist Edward P. Harris came to be recognized professionally as Carolina Slim. He avoided his legal name entirely in performance and on record, instead adopting a series of alternate identities that included Country Paul, Georgia Pine, Jammin' Jim, and Lazy Slim Jim. Details surrounding his life remain sparse, among them any explanation for his use of multiple monikers, though accounts indicate that his father first taught him the guitar. Stylistic influences on his playing extended to Lightnin' Hopkins and Blind Boy Fuller.
Harris relocated to Newark, New Jersey, around 1950. There he cut his initial sides for the Savoy label under the Carolina Slim name. The following year found him affiliated with the King label and performing as Country Paul. Across roughly two years he laid down a total of twenty-seven tracks, among them “Worry You off My Mind,” “Mama’s Boogie,” “I’ll Never Walk in Your Door,” “Wine Head Baby,” “Black Chariot Blues,” and “Mother Dear Mother.”
At age thirty, Edward Harris suffered a fatal heart attack in 1953. Subsequent reissues of his material have appeared on the collections Carolina Blues & Boogie and The Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, 1950-1952.
