Magic Slim

• Genre: Chicago Blues
• Hometown: Chicago

About

Magic Slim's are some of the deepest blues of all. He was a contemporary of '60s Electric Blues legends Magic Sam and B.B. King, but he labored away in the relative obscurity of the Chicago club circuit for almost twenty years. He finally rose to national prominence in 1977, when he recorded his breakthrough LP, Born Under a Bad Sign. Make no mistake: those years of dues-payin' have given Slim the soul of a warrior. His vocals contain more grit than a barrel of unwashed oysters, and his guitar playing channels raw emotion into scorching, no-nonsense licks drenched in fierce vibrato, which burn down the barn without even so much as a nudge of the distortion pedal. The Teardrops, his backing band, draw from an enormous repertoire that ranges from gut-wrenching slow blues to rag-tag shuffle-boogie, which they play with an expertly honed, off-the-cuff rawness.

- Noah Enelow