Watermelon Slim live, solo, in Nashville March 2010

Clarksdale, Miss., resident, longtime Oklahoman and North Carolina-reared blues musicmaker Bill "Watermelon Slim" Homans plays a mean slide guitar. "And I was an above-average harp player," he says of his early years making music, his first record of work-song blues coming out in 1972. But when he hears what young blues players like Craig Lawler and Jason Ricci can do with the harmonica today, he knows from his 61 years ever more clearly why he spent so many of them working sawmills and, for as much as 13 years, driving trucks, 11 of those full-time over-the-road. And he's happy with being just above average.

"While he may not be in the major leagues, a double- or triple-A baseball player is playing a good deal better than the rest of us," he told a small Nashville crowd at Carol Ann Cafe in March, delivering one raucus show, and this vid, shot by Overdrive Senior Editor Todd Dills (http://overdriveonline.com/channel19), is plenty evidence.

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• Bill Homans
• blues music
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• trucking songs
• Blue Freightliner
• Carol Ann Cafe
• Nashville
• trucking blues
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[murdock3445]

spent a lot of time hauling household goods in massachusetts too.