Magic Slim, RIP

[Dan Gould]

It is with great sorrow that I inform you that Magic Slim, a.k.a. Morris Holt of Grenada, Mississippi passed away Thursday, February 21, 2013. He will be missed by his family, friends and blues fans all over the world. Funeral arrangements and a Memorial Service will be announced later this week. The family wishes to thank everyone for their kind words and prayers.

More here

I got deeply into the blues for several years before I discovered the 'magic man' but I'm very glad I did. Great guitar work, strong vocals and a terrific band behind him. You always knew who was playing before Morris Holt took the mic.

[Dan Gould]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7j0MIR1tHvw

[robertoart]

This is great stuff. RIP.

I went to a local 'Bluesfest' a few weeks ago, enjoyable though it was, it could never compare to this.

The organisers are hoping to bring out some 'International' acts next year.

And yep....who would be on the top of their list for a 'Blues Festival' - apart from Bob Dylan

Yep...Bloody Robben Ford - with his wispy washed out/thin vocals and Fusion scales.

Give the people what they want. Not that there's anything wrong with that...but still...

[paul secor]

Give the people what they want. Not that there's anything wrong with that...but still...

You just have to keep your distance from "the people".

[Jim Alfredson]

Magic Slim sat in with us (us being Janiva Magness and the band) a few years ago when we played the Zoo Bar in Lincoln, NE. He tore the roof off the joint. He was a very kind and gracious man and it was a real honor sharing the stage with him. May he rest in peace.

[mr jazz]

I remember a very late night at Kingston Mines in chicago with Magic Slim and the Teardrops. Lots of great music. I had a chance to chat with him briefly, a very nice man, RIP.

[clifford_thornton]

Sorry to hear this - RIP.

[John L]

RIP. This is a hard one to take. In some ways, he was the last in a line of truly distictive artists who embodied the low down side of the Mississippi/Southside Chicago tradition. Certainly, nobody alive did it better. You don't replace somebody like Magic Slim.

[jeffcrom]

I meant to post in this thread before now. I absolutely loved Magic Slim. I was lucky enough to hear him at Blind Willie's in Atlanta and at his home turf, the Zoo Bar in Lincoln, Nebraska. (If that sounds weird to folks who don't know the story, he was so impressed with Lincoln after playing the Zoo Bar that he moved his family there in 1994 to escape the violence of his Chicago neighborhood.) He wasn't an innovator, just a great practitioner of Mississippi-by-way-of Chicago blues. During the period I saw him, he played a Fender Jazzmaster plugged directly into the amp - no pedals or effects - and his sound was raw and nasty.

And damn - the grooves! Pick up Black Tornado and play "Wake Me Up Early" and "You've Got Bad Intentions" back to back; "Wake Me Up" is a hard Chicago blues, and "Intentions" is a relaxed "flat tire" shuffle. I would say that's the yin and yang of Magic Slim, but that leaves out the extremely slow blues he sometimes played - so slow that the pain of the lyrics was doubled or tripled - and the country-flavored instrumentals he would occasionaly break into; when he was growing up in Mississippi, there was no such thing as black radio, but there was plenty of country music to be heard.

I knew that Slim wouldn't live forever, but I somehow hoped I would be wrong. RIP, Bad Boy, the Black Tornado.

[robertoart]

I meant to post in this thread before now. I absolutely loved Magic Slim. I was lucky enough to hear him at Blind Willie's in Atlanta and at his home turf, the Zoo Bar in Lincoln, Nebraska. (If that sounds weird to folks who don't know the story, he was so impressed with Lincoln after playing the Zoo Bar that he moved his family there in 1994 to escape the violence of his Chicago neighborhood.) He wasn't an innovator, just a great practitioner of Mississippi-by-way-of Chicago blues. During the period I saw him, he played a Fender Jazzmaster plugged directly into the amp - no pedals or effects - and his sound was raw and nasty.

And damn - the grooves! Pick up Black Tornado and play "Wake Me Up Early" and "You've Got Bad Intentions" back to back; "Wake Me Up" is a hard Chicago blues, and "Intentions" is a relaxed "flat tire" shuffle. I would say that's the yin and yang of Magic Slim, but that leaves out the extremely slow blues he sometimes played - so slow that the pain of the lyrics was doubled or tripled - and the country-flavored instrumentals he would occasionaly break into; when he was growing up in Mississippi, there was no such thing as black radio, but there was plenty of country music to be heard.

I knew that Slim wouldn't live forever, but I somehow hoped I would be wrong. RIP, Bad Boy, the Black Tornado

Would have loved to have seen in him in his home turf Bar.

And yep. If you want raw and nasty...bypass the pedals.