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| Magic Slim and his missing finger |
Magic Slim (Morris Holt to his mum) was born in 1937 in Torrance , not the one in Stirlingshire, Scotland but the one near Greneda in Mississippi. I am looking forward to receiving more information about Torrance from Erik our Mississippi Delta correspondent.
He moved to Chicago but not before losing a finger in a cotton gin accident (Morris not Erik) putting pay to any hope of a career as a pianist.
There he got in tow with Magic Sam who bestowed his nickname upon him.
He quickly became an integral part of the Chicago blues scene performing in the Juke Joints with his band The Teardrops.
Here on these two tracks from 1982 (the first one of his own composition and the second a bluesed up cover of Rufus Thomas' Walking the Dog) the band consists of his brother Nick Holt on bass, Pete Allen on guitar and Nate Applewhite on drums. On occasions another brother Lee Baby Holt performs the drumming duties.He also had a sister known as Hercules who was over 6 feet tall as were all the brothers.
Sadly, he died in Philadelphia in February 2013 at the age of 75 .
Magic Slim - Early Every Morning
Magic Slim -Walking The Dog
The first you have to know is that when you're looking at a map of Mississippi, it's pronounced Gruh-NAY-duh. :). I may be wrong about this but, I don't think Torrance is there anymore.
ReplyDeleteThe second thing is that Grenada is not in The Delta. It may seem pedantic or fiddly but there's a world of difference between being down in it...where huge plantations dominated the pace of work and free time and brought large numbers of people together...and being out of it in the smaller farms and isolated communities...especially in the Hill Country. Grenada is 20 some miles west of The Delta on the southern edge of the Hill Country. You get a different kinda blues up there...one I much prefer (RL Burnside, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Junior Kimbrough, etc).
I will be up that way this week...Tupelo.
Am enjoying the ongoing Mississippi geography lessons Erik. Your reference to Tupelo has planted a seed ,,,
DeleteGrenada is east not west of The Delta...doh. I suck at this.
DeleteMy trip to Tupelo got canceled...which, means I won't be visiting Aberdeen this week (or drinking the silky moonshine that is brewed in the area). I look forward to your visit.