“…I just started moanin’ with them” – Alabama Slim’s life in music

Listening to Alabama Slim on the phone, one thinks of old Southern Blues and Gospel music, his voice smooth like butter and as warm as hot chocolate. Hearing him sing is even better; he is truly one of the best Blues singers of his time. Born in Alabama at the end of the Great Depression, Slim fell in love with the Blues of Bill Broonzy and Lightnin’ Hopkins. “I grew up listening to the old blues since I was a child. I spent summers with my grandparents who had a farm. Them old folks would get to moanin’ while they worked, and I just started moanin’ with them. That’s where I learned to sing,” he said.

Slim moved to New Orleans after Hurricane Betsy in 1956 and lived there up until he lost all of his possessions in the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina and had to move to Dallas. After the devastation of Katrina, he recorded “Mighty Flood,” which illustrated the despair he felt after the Hurricane — an alternative to the happy go-lucky man Slim usually is. He painted a riveting picture of the way New Orleans was “post apocalypse” and spoke through his music to every person who survived Katrina, but lost so much more. Since Katrina, Slim has produced more upbeat work – more representative of his nature, integrating New Orleans musicians and beats into the songs. He is now living back in the Crescent City and performing regularly.

Look for Slim’s CD, Blue & Lonesome, to be available next week with new artwork!

— Maggie

This is Matt Dailey’s second summer interning with Music Maker; he has spent the past year helping us with digitization of audio files. This summer he’s also beginning work on his Master’s paper for his graduate program in Library Science at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. For his paper he’s decided to do a case study of utilizing an organizational program, Archivist’s Toolkit, to organize Music Maker’s vast archive.

The Toolkit has primarily been used at large academic institutions, but Matt wants to see if it would be a viable system for a small non-profit that is more focused on day-to-day operations. Through his work on this, we’ll be able to see if this program would be feasible for Music Maker and could be the first step in making our archived materials accessible to the public online. We still have a long way to go, but Matt’s work on the Toolkit will begin to organize all types of files (photos, video, audio, text) into one database to be searchable by artist.

Thanks Matt for all your hard work!

Mule plowing probably doesn’t figure in the life of most Parisians, but that didn’t stop Adolphus Bell from asking them “Have You Ever Plowed a Mule?” Listening to him describe it makes it sound like a battle of willpower between mule and man. My money’s on Adolphus in that struggle.

What’s interesting about Adolphus is his DIY approach to the blues: he’s his own singer, guitarist, AND drummer. In his words: “I got my guitar and I was playing and both my feet was going with the music. And it was like something hit me: go put some drums on them feet! I went down to a pawn shop and got me a bass drum and a high hat and came back up to that room. I started playing and the first song I played it scared me it sounded so good.”

Any player who’s had to wait on a flakey band mate to show for rehearsal can relate to the wisdom of this.

This original song was recorded in Paris in 2006, where Adolphus and other Music Maker artists performed at the renowned venue The New Morning.

Check it out!

— Ben

Ben Davidson is a writer, editor, and fingerstyle guitarist from Durham, NC. He has been volunteering with Music Maker, lending his writing and editorial skills to our web content and newsletters.