Product Description
HEAVY DRUNK - FEATURING WATERMELON SLIM
BLUESLAND THEME PARK
COMING FEBRUARY 21, 2025, RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY!
HEAVYDRUNK & WATERMELON SLIM
Bluesland Theme Park
HeavyDrunk Records
Toss Watermelon Slim and HeavyDrunk into a blender. Hit the switch, then duck. You’ll be cleaning blooze splatter off the ceiling for months. Slim and the nine piece outfit HeavyDrunk led by vocalist/guitarist Rob Robinson are a good fit, Robinson and crew adding a powerful punch to Slim’s creations and getting their own vintage sounding blues and old school R&B across as well.
“Watermelon Girl” is the standout cut, a Tony Joe White co-write (with HeavyDrunk vocalist Rob Robinson) that has nothing in common with most of White’s odes to swamp denizens or rainy nights in Georgia. White traded in his waders for flip flops for this swaying samba tribute complete with weepy steel guitar and steel drums dedicated to a melon vendor who won his heart and now shares his Stepside while he sees to it that her melons get proper love and care.
“Little Big Horn” is vintage Slim, an acoustic number performed on one of the resonator guitars Slim uses for his Delta blues solo renderings. It’s also the song that got Robinson and Slim together when Robinson first heard Slim perform the previously unrecorded song and immediately booked a studio to get it down on tape, starting their collaboration which now includes four albums. It starts out as a standard bluesman’s lament, Slim musing that the road dawg life is a lonely one: “The bottles get empty and the women drift away,” Slim admits, before admitting that’s not why he’s singing today. The purpose of the song is to resurrect memories of the Little Big Horn battle known as Custer’s last stand: “They say the Indians and the prairies gave way to the settlers/But I don’t think they’re getting it right,” Slim proclaims. “The guns now are silent, but the memory’s forever/Remains on the buffalo soil.”
Slim steps out front again on resonator guitar and vocals for the road dawg saga “Road Food And Cheap Motels.” “I know them beds and I know them smells,” Slim admits. “Rolling down this highway while my song still sells.” Like many soul classics, “Fresh” celebrates its gospel roots while promoting a secular image, substituting romantic love for celestial worship: “Hold steady, baby, I’m focused and ready,” Robinson vows, backed by a band that sounds like it came out of Memphis’ Stax label in the ‘60s.
As advertised, the project would be at home in a blues theme park, a rattly roller coaster ride to shake up thrill seekers of all ages.
– Grant Britt