Watermelon Slim

Watermelon Slim, born Bill Homans, stands out as a blues performer, Vietnam veteran, and MENSA member. Working as a vocalist, composer, and player of multiple instruments, he seemed to arrive with sudden force on the 2003 album Big Shoes to Fill following three decades of sporadic gigs in bars and clubs nationwide. Earlier attempts to build a music career had run alongside dozens of other occupations such as truck driver hauling toxic waste, bill collector, small-time lawbreaker, funeral celebrant, and journalist for a newspaper. The 2006 release titled The Workers by Watermelon Slim & the Workers accordingly celebrated manual labor and reached number 13 on the blues charts; its tracks and their creator later appeared in the 2009 documentary Tar Creek, which examined an ecological catastrophe in Oklahoma. His arsenal features a raw, gritty bottleneck slide guitar performed with a spark-plug socket together with a commanding blues harp modeled on Slim Harpo, Charlie Musselwhite, and Big Walter Horton. Five W.C. Handy awards and induction into the Blues Hall of Fame mark his achievements. The 2009 album Escape from the Chicken Coop climbed to number nine on the blues charts, opening doors to European festival stages even as his profile rose in the United States. Ringers in 2010 became his third straight charting effort, landing at number 11. The following year he joined Super Chikan for the barroom favorite Okiesippi Blues, then regrouped the Workers in 2013 for Bull Goose Rooster. Extensive touring occupied the next three years before the 2017 European album Golden Boy preceded the number 15-charting Church of the Blues in 2019.

Homans entered the world in Boston yet grew up in North Carolina, where he recalls first hearing the blues at age five. Choir and glee-club singing occupied his childhood, though serious musical pursuit began after military service in Vietnam concluded in 1970. He issued the fiercely anti-war Merry Airbrakes on his own label in 1973. Despite years spent in blue-collar roles, chiefly behind the wheel of a truck, he earned degrees in history and journalism from the University of Oregon plus a master’s in history from Oklahoma State University. In the late 1990s he formed the blues group Fried Okra Jones and led it with his gritty, fervent vocals, harp work, and distinctive left-handed National Steel guitar technique. His compositions carry understated, thoughtful turns while staying firmly rooted in blues conventions.

A major heart attack prompted Watermelon Slim to devote himself entirely to music, resulting in two Southern Records albums: Big Shoes to Fill in 2003 and Up Close & Personal in 2004. Forming the Workers, he delivered the forceful Watermelon Slim & the Workers on NorthernBlues Music in 2006, followed by The Wheel Man the next year and No Paid Holidays in 2008. A shift toward country material produced the truck-driving collection Escape from the Chicken Coop, issued by NorthernBlues in 2009. Country accents reappeared on 2010’s Ringers, his fifth NorthernBlues outing and third chart entry. The 2011 collaboration with Super Chikan yielded the bar hit Okiesippi Blues, after which he reconvened the Workers for the loose, raw Bull Goose Rooster in 2013. Three years of road work led to the 2017 European release Golden Boy and then the number 15-charting Church of the Blues in 2019. At age 70 in 2020 he issued the double-live set Traveling Man, captured across two nights at a storied Oklahoma roots venue and produced by Chris Hardwick. One disc documents a performance at the Blue Door in Oklahoma City, the other at The Depot in Norman, both presented as solo outings with only guitar and harmonica.