WATERMELON SLIM AND THE WORKERS & BLUES FOUNDATION AWARDS

Watermelon Slim and the Workers Win Top Industry Honors for "Band Of The Year" and "Album Of The Year"

The NorthernBlues Music release, The Wheel Man, wins "Album of the Year" over peers Koko Taylor, Bettye LaVette and Jimmie Vaughan.

Watermelon Slim and the Workers won a pair of awards at the Memphis-based Blues Foundation’s 2008 Blues Music Awards (formerly W.C. Handy Awards) on Thursday, May 8, 2008, at the Grand Casino Event Center in Tunica, Mississippi.

Watermelon Slim is a relatively new luminary of the blues, rapidly building a career behind four albums and constant touring. In 2008 Slim was nominated for six awards, a feat matched only by the likes of B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Robert Cray. Slim has had 12 nominations in the last two years, a feat unmatched in the event’s 29 years.

Slim, his band, and the album have been steadily building praise preceding these two Blues Music Awards. The legendary Jerry Wexler penned the liner notes of the award-winning album, which also won the Independent Music Award for ‘Blues Album of the Year.’

Watermelon Slim and the Workers have long been leading earners for their exclusive booking agency, Intrepid Artists. Among other accolades, the band also won the 2008 Maple Blues Award for "International Artist of the Year".

The Toronto-based world/roots/blues label NorthernBlues Music has released the last two Watermelon Slim & The Workers CDs. A self-titled album was released in February 2006. The Wheel Man was released in April 2007 and debuted in the top ten on Billboard’s Blues Charts. It was produced by Chris Wick and features keyboardist David Maxwell and Chicago blues legend Magic Slim on the title track. As mentioned earlier, Jerry Wexler wrote the liner notes, yet had to decline a producer role due to health issues.

Owner of NorthernBluesMusic, Inc., Fred Litwin beams, "I can't tell you how proud I am of Watermelon Slim - these awards show that the fans recognize he is the most authentic and honest bluesman out there". These are not lighthearted words, considering Litwin’s label launched the likes of Otis Taylor and Janiva Magness into worldwide recognition and their own bevy of awards.

Born in North Carolina, raised in Boston, Bill ‘Watermelon Slim’ Homans was schooled at Middleberry College until he enlisted in Vietnam. While laid up in an Army hospital, he taught himself upside-down, left-handed guitar with his military-issued Zippo [lighter] as a slide and a plastic pick cut from the top of a coffee can. He has been a truck driver, watermelon farmer, sawmiller, funeral officiator and small-time criminal. He’s earned two Masters' degrees in history and journalism and hauled industrial waste.

In the early 2000s, a near-fatal heart attack clarified his focus on mortality and he hit the road on a new career as a singing/songwriting/guitar-playing/harmonica-blowing/performing bluesman. The highly anticipated follow up to The Wheel Man is entitled No Paid Holidays and features Lee Roy Parnell on slide guitar. No Paid Holidays hits the street June 24, 2008, on NorthernBlues Music, via Redeye Distribution.

For almost three decades, the Blues Music Awards (and previously the W.C. Handy Awards) have celebrated excellence in performance and recording of the blues. For more information about the Blues Foundation and the Blues Music Awards, visit www.blues.org.

www.watermelonslim.com

www.northernblues.com

Label/Radio:

Pamela at NorthernBlues - info@northernblues.com

Publicity & Media:

Michael McClune - michael@michaelmcclune.net

Bookings:

Intrepid Artists
704.358.4777 or staff@intrepidartists.com

Management:

Chris Hardwick at Southern Artists - chris@southernartist.net

Message forwarded by Dave King - dking@modempool.com


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