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.

The setlist, flavored with the steel-guitar-rag piece “Black Tornado” and the Hound Dog Taylor-esque roots-rockin’ blues “Shake It,” provides evidence of Slim’s eclecticism (he can call thousands of songs to hand), but concentrates on his bread and butter: pounding shuffles (”Mind Your Own Business,” “I Don’t Believe You Baby”), funky contemporary Chicago blues (”I Need Lovin’,” Albert Collins’s showstopper “Get Your Business Straight,” “The Man You Need,” “Bluesman”) Jimmy Reed-style lumps (”Goin’ To Mississippi”), and intense deep blues (”Please Don’t Dog Me,” Muddy Waters’s “Still A Fool”). The DVD version of this project, released simultaneously, features a slightly different playlist, dropping the two covers and replacing them with three other Magic Slim originals and an interview. A few barely perceptible tuning errors (this is the blues, after all!) and any other cavils are utterly dismissable: “Anything Can Happen” is the real thing - tough Chicago blues played like no one else can. Don’t miss it.

TOM HYSLOP