MAGIC SLIM & THE TEARDROPS
Anything Can Happen
Blind Pig 5098

Magic Slim & the Teardrops live up to the promotional claim: The Last Real Chicago Blues Band. A fixture on the scene since his late ’60s vinyl debut, Slim’s position as houserocker and deep blues artist of the first magnitude remains unquestioned, due to his worldwide live performances and his extensive recorded output. Although Wolf (Austria) has issued numerous live albums, no domestic imprint has released an in-performance CD on Slim. Now Blind Pig has done it properly, with “Anything Can Happen”, recorded during the winter months of 2005, a set composed almost completely of originals that makes a persuasive argument for Magic Slim’s status as a truly original bluesman.

The band’s lineup has wholly changed since Slim’s last recording,”Blue Magic”. The oldest new Teardrop, Vern “Sticks” Taylor, pops the snare in the manner of his immediate predecessor Al Kirk. Guitarist Jon McDonald, a veteran guitarist who has worked with national and Chicago-based artists, incorporates elements of the playing of Otis Rush, Mike Bloomfield, and Freddie King into a style of his own that is immediately apparent when he steps forward from his rock-solid rhythm duties. Chris Biedron is the latest in a series of bass players Slim has recruited in an effort to replace his retired brother, Nick Holt. Magic Slim’s force of personality has kept his Teardrops’ sound consistent despite personnel shifts. His showmanship encompasses rapport with audiences and innate understanding of his material, an immense voice, and gritty guitar work distinguished by its timing, dynamics, phrasing, alternating power and subtlety, and mastery of the tonal possibilities of his Fender Jazzmaster guitars. Slim has subsumed the styles of Eddie Taylor, B.B. King, Elmore James, Albert King, Otis Rush, Hubert Sumlin, and many more in becoming his own man, the consummate veteran post-war Chicago journeyman blues artist.
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