LIGHTNIN’ SLIM

“The way I used to get Lightnin’ Slim to cut blues was this. Two or three days before I’d call him for a session I’d give his woman $25 to give him hell. If at the session he really sang the blues, because that woman had given them to him, I’d give her another $25. If she really made a good job of it, I’d give her the prettiest dress she’d ever seen on top of that!”

Thus former Excello Records producer Jay D. Miller remembered his favorite blues artist in a 1969 conversation with British journalist Mike Leadbitter. Unsuspecting Lightnin’ Slim must have caught a lot of hell down in Louisiana, because “he really sang the blues” record after record on Excello. Titles like “I’m Leavin’ You Baby,” “Cool Down Baby,” “Mind Your Own Business,” “I’m Warning You Baby,” “Don’t Mistreat Me Baby,” “You Give Me the Blues,” “Have Mercy on Me Baby,” and “Can’t Live This Life No More” indicate that Miller’s tricks must have been working. Singing about woman troubles, or just plain bad luck, Otis “Lightnin’ Slim” Hicks became Exello’s most prolific blues artist and gained an international reputation as one of the foremost practitioners of true down-home blues.

Born near St. Louis, Missouri, on March 13, 1913, Otis soon moved with his family to Louisiana. His older brother played guitar, and he heard blues from the field hands around him, but Otis didn’t take up the guitar himself until he was 35. He was playing in Baton Rouge in 1954 when WXOK disk jockey Diggy Do introduced him to Miller. Dubbing the 41-year-old bluesman “Lightnin’ Slim,” Miller recorded him on his Feature label, which had until then been reserved for cajun and country music. After three fine singles on Miller’s Crowley-based label, Slim did one record for Johnny Vincent’s Ace label in Jackson, Mississippi later that year. Miller’s and Slim’s long association with Excello, a Nashville company, began in 1955.

During the next dozen years, Miller and Excello recorded more than 60 sides by Slim in Crowley. Slim proved to be a popular, if not terribly original or versatile, artist. Virtually all of his records were pure gutbucket blues, featuring Slim’s predictable, simple and enjoyable vocals and guitar, at first backed only by harmonica and drums; in the ’60’s, additional guitars, bass and keyboards appeared, but Slim never altered his low-down blues style. Many of his blues were based on earlier or then-current records by popular bluesmen like Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter.

Slim’s record sales must have slowed down considerably in the mid-’60’s, for when he went to Detroit in 1966, neither Miller nor Excello made any real attempt to relocate him, and Slim has lived in Michigan ever since. Slim’s version of the split, as told to Chris Smith in England earlier this year, was, “Oh well, I never lost touch except ’cause I got so as I didn’t like the way the company was takin’ money from me and I left. I slipped off and there wasn’t a thing any of ’em could do ’cause there wasn’t one of them knowed where I was!”

But, perhaps sensing the time was right to try again. Slim and Excello (minus Miller) got together last year to record a new LP in Sheffield, Alabama. The tightly arranged horn section and studio group seemed incongrous with Slim’s unchanged lazy Louisiana blues style, but the LP’s liner notes boast a full-fledged endorsement from B.B. King.

Within the last two years Slim has played a number of concerts across the country and in Europe, where he recorded another LP in March. He still sings and plays as much as he always has, and his new-found audiences love it. His best (and first) LP, Rooster Blues, is still available from Excello, presenting Lightnin’ Slim at his down-home finest.