Slick Ballinger is only 21 years old. One
would assume he was a seasoned blues player by listening to him play
guitar and sing the blues. That assumption would indeed be correct. Slick
started playing guitar at the age of 15. By the age of 18 Slick shared the
stage with Pinetop Perkins, Othar Turner and many others. Ballinger won
the Albert King Award in 2004 for "Most Promising Guitarist" at the 2004
International Blues Challenge. Now, after a few years of becoming friendly
with the road, Ballinger has released his debut “Mississippi Soul” on Oh
Boy Records, a Nashville-based label.
Keeping it simple, with only a three piece
band is more than Slick needs to win blues fans over after hearing a few
tracks on this disc. Slick’s vocals and guitar playing are great. Leon’s
hard driving beats are cool. Blind Mississippi Morris plays harp like you
wouldn’t believe. Put it all together and this disc kicks some serious
butt. This is an enjoyable cd for a fan of some hard driving acoustic
blues and fantastic harp! I didn’t see any new tour dates posted on his
site but I know I’ll be keeping an eye out for any news of a Midwest
stop.
Slick Ballinger – Guitar and
Vocals Blind Mississippi Morris- Harp Leon Baker –
Drums
1. SUGAR MAMA BLUES – sweet and strong
start, great harp and guitar 2. YOU DON’T LOVE ME- great remake of the
Willie Cobbs classic 3. BROTHERHOOD BLUES- soulful and grooving
original 4. MISSISSIPPI SOUL– cool toe tapping and hand clapping
original 5. LETS GET DOWN- another original that really gets down 6.
ROSALIE- Slicks vocals really shine here on this Muddy Waters tune 7.
JUKE HOUSE BLUES- harp driven jump and shout juke blues 8. BULL COW
BLUES- another great upbeat blues jam 9. SLOW DOWN- starts slow but
gets you rocking right away 10. SLEEPING DOGS LIE- great beat, great
harp and Slick tries a little slide here too! 11. TALKING ABOUT JESUS-
Bonus track, not listed, cool gospel and blues tune!
Let’s start at the ending, a very good
place to start.
Slick Ballinger’s album, Mississippi Soul, ends
with a hidden track, “Talkin’ About Jesus,” where this young blues guitar
slinger lays bare his faith and its connection to the blues. Before
hopping into the jump-blues Gospel of the tune, Ballinger says over the
vamp,
“You know the blues ain’t nothin’ but the trials and
tribulations of what you’re going through in life. See the old folk told
me that every man down here on this earth is going to have the blues at
one time or another, and that is the truth. They told me that long time
ago back when the people was down in the cotton fields and tobacco fields
and things, they said the blues was nothing but a gift from God down on a
oppressed people. They said when He reached down and He gave the people
the ability to sing them blues, He reached down and gave them the ability
to moan. But right now people, we just got to give you the answer to the
blues. Ain’t but one answer, and it goes something like this. . .
.”
I’ve long held that the Psalms in the Bible ain’t nothing but
the blues written a long time ago in Hebrew. Even Moses had those Delta
blues back in Egypt. What Ballinger does on this hidden track is bring
that all together, showing how the blues are God’s way of helping us
express the anguish in our souls but also how Jesus is the answer to the
blues.
That’s a good place to start when talking about Mississippi
Soul, because much of the rest of the album finds Ballinger singing the
blues—and what the blues are usually about: women/sex (Sonny Boy
Williamson’s “Sugar Mama Blues”) and bars (“Juke House Blues”). As
Ballinger lays down some incredible Mississippi blues, laying bare those
honest moans from real life, it could be hard for some in the Christian
community to see how the Gospel answers these kinds of
blues.
Yet, the blues always have that self-conscious notion
that while this woman may be beautiful or this juke joint may be jumping,
that there’s still something missing. These things don’t quite fill us up,
which is when we realize they’re not the real answer to the
blues.
Ballinger jams on his acoustic guitar in such a way as to
raise up decades of country blues that have been planted and buried in the
soil. Leon Baker on drums keeps the jump in the jump blues, and Blind
Mississippi Morris wails, moans, and yells the blues through his harmonica
which gets that distorted horn sound. The trio makes the whole building
hip-dip, hip-shake, and hip-sway on the country blues vamps of
“Mississippi Soul” and “Let’s Get Down.”
And once that whole
building is shaking, it’s a song like “Brotherhood Blues” that starts to
lead that shaking crowd to the truth. Even as all people of all races are
one in Christ, so Ballinger’s dirt main street strut blues gets everyone
to look around and see that they all have the same color souls—country
souls looking for the Gospel.
One might say that the
Mississippi River runs through his veins. Certainly the spirit of
traditional blues is the lifeblood of 21 year-old Daniel "Slick"
Ballinger. Influenced by the likes of Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters, the
North Carolina native and current Mississippi resident picked up the
guitar at the age of fifteen and with it took the torch from a bygone
generation and began to run with it.
Before he turned
eighteen, Ballinger was honored to share the stage with the likes of Othar
Turner and Pinetop Perkins, and more recently with the legendary BB King.
During the summer of 2002, a 94 year-old Turner took the young Ballinger
under his wing and taught him how to live and breathe the blues, in a
house with no electricity or running water. Turner was the last surviving
master of the Mississippi back-country fife-and-drum tradition, a
primitive take on African-American songs which dates back to the Northern
Mississippi hill country culture of the 1800s. Living under such
conditions is likely to drive a modern man crazy, but not when you are a
young bluesman with an old soul like Ballinger. He and Turner rose early
each day and led a simple routine of chores, followed by traveling the
gravel roads of Mississippi to perform at juke joints and house
parties.
The young Ballinger could never have imagined a
better education, though he is truly humble and does not see himself as a
prodigy. "Everybody does something well," he says. "For me, it’s playing
the blues. I can make the people of Mississippi jump up and shout, and
they know something about the blues."
Ballinger won the
Albert King Award in 2004 for "Most Promising Guitarist" at the 2004
International Blues Challenge. Now, after a few years of becoming friendly
with the road, Ballinger is set to release his debut on Oh Boy Records, a
Nashville-based label that is home to singer/songwriter John Prine. The
new record was produced by Jim Gaines (Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, George
Thorogood, Steve Miller Band, Journey, John Lee Hooker). Ballinger refers
to Gaines as a "genius," saying that the renowned producer was able to
capture the raw energy of Ballinger’s live sound.
Slick
Ballinger is a young man with simple values, and sets out to make his
music reflect that. His gruff but soulful voice and string-snapping guitar
style are proof that old-school Delta blues can not only be taught, but
can be truly learned and transferred to a new
generation.
"All of the great artists that ever been, went
down in history because of the simplicity of it," Ballinger says. "Like
Chuck Berry." He pauses, then, like a wise old man, adds a simple
sentiment that is the mantra of the young bluesman’s
life.
"Ain’t no use in making things complicated," he
says.
