Felix Slim & his Fat Chickens - Felix Slim & his Fat Chickens (Downbeat Sessions)

Size: 189 MB
Time: 29:26
File: Flac
Released: 2023
Styles: Blues
Art: Front

1. Rollin' & Tumblin' (4:19)
2. Blues Disease (5:46)
3. What Do I Have (2:06)
4. Right All Night Long (5:21)
5. Open The Back Door Mama (2:52)
6. Send Me a Picture of Your Face (1:44)
7. Baby Let's Try to Make It Work (3:16)
8. Tell Me Mama (3:59)

One of Spain’s leading blues musicians, born in the North African enclave of Ceuta-Cadiz and based nowadays in Brooklyn, New York, Felix Slim is an entirely self-taught multi-instrumentalist and specializes in blues, ragtime and swing from the 1920s to 1940s.
Influenced by the Delta, Piedmont and Texas sound, Slim uses slide guitar, fingerpicking and standard and open tunings, and has played his dynamic versions of blues classics and original songs with echoes of flamenco, rebetiko and jazz manouche on seven albums and in over ten countries worldwide.
Expertly swapping between the harmonica and kazoo along with his unique singing voice complement each other, creating a fresh and distinctive yet true vintage sound. His ability to connect and involve the audience has developed a compelling live show, which combines the humor and warmth of his native Andalusia with the gritty reality of country blues.
In addition to these styles he plays electric guitar and sings in his own Felix Slim Blues Band, delivering a mix of 1950s and 1960s electric blues, swing, r&b and early soul/funk.
Throughout his career Felix has shared the stage and studio with a range of other renowned artists, such as Mingo Balaguer, Raimundo Amador, Bob Margolin, Bob Corritore, Gunhild Carling, David Langlois, Eddie C. Campbell, Antonio Serrano, Bob Stroger, Mayteana Morales, Tamar Korn, Kenny Wayne, Brandon Isaak, John del Toro Richardson, Wes Lee, Bobby Radcliff, Dave Riley, Victor Puertas, Binky Griptite, Tony Braunagel, Norman Jackson Band, Halle Tchoe and many others.

Felix Slim & his Fat Chickens (Downbeat Sessions) FLAC

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Felix Slim - Overseas Blues

Size: 182 MB
Time: 58:44
File: Flac
Released: 2020
Styles: Blues, Swing
Art: Front

1. Roll & Tumble Blues (4:19)
2. Chantelle Rag (3:15)
3. Let's Try To Make It Work (3:14)
4. I Won't Be Here (3:07)
5. Better Let Me Be (5:25)
6. LIC Stomp (2:21)
7. Right All Night Long (5:14)
8. Send Me A Picture Of Your Face (2:35)
9. Blues Disease (6:40)
10. Mystery Train (4:45)
11. What Do I Have (3:22)
12. Overseas Blues (4:29)
13. Open The Back Door (3:56)
14. Tell Me Mama (5:55)

Felix Slim is the rare guitarist who’s just as much a connoisseur of the blues as he is ragtime. And he has a sort-of-secret side that’s even more exciting…but you’ll have to wait til the end of this to find out what that is. Slim is his real name: he hails from Ceuta, Spain originally and has been a staple of the Queens acoustic scene for several years. Gauging from his music, it’s a stretch to think he might be related to to the cellphone tycoon and media mogul. Slim’s next gig is on Sept 17 at 4 PM at Skinny Dennis. If you’re up for the party – and it will be a party – New York’s best Americana crew, Demolition String Band play afterward at 9. Slim typically plays solo, so it makes sense that his latest album, Overseas Blues – streaming at Bandcamp – would also be a solo affair. It’s one of the seemingly never-ending number of releases that were recorded in 2019 – in this case, at Binky Griptite’s Brooklyn studio – and were knocked off the rails by the plandemic. On this one, Slim is at his most rustically careening: his style is 180 degrees from the careful, museum-piece blues style that so many of the white kids playing it lately seem to be shooting for. The first number is Roll and Tumble Blues, a refreshingly primitive Mississippi hill country-style tune that really rolls and tumbles: Slim plays blues harp on it too. The second is Chantelle Rag, a charmingly intricate number with a ridiculous joke about midway through which is too good to spoil. Track three is Let’s Try to Make It Work, a stomping ba-bump boogie. He follows with I Won’t Be Here, a scrambling Texas-flavored tune and then the rollicking Better Let Me Be: with his harp going full blast as he punches out a one-chord stomp, it really takes you back to a roadhouse of the mind circa 1923. LIC Stomp is a lot more than that, part deep delta swamp dance, part ragtime. Slim breaks out his kazoo for an irresistibly goofy trombone impersonation in Right All Night Long, then delivers a deliciously animated yet deadpan take of the hokum blues Send Me a Picture of Your Face. He airs out his chops with the rapidfire flurries and hammer-ons of Blues Disease, the album’s most epic jam. His take of what he calls “Mistery Train” is a lot more ramshackle than anything Arthur Crudup, let alone Elvis ever envisioned – and has a killer mystery interlude. Slim goes back to agile, light-fingered ragtime for What Do I Have, then breaks out his slide for the album’s title track, fueled by a tasty Lightning Hopkins-style bassline. He closes the record with Open the Back Door!, which isn’t as dirty as you might think, and then pulls out all the stops, kazoo and all, for a lickety-split, innuendo-packed version of Tell Me Mama. The last time this blog was in the house at a Slim gig (if memory serves right) was over the 2019 Labor Day weekend, when he serenaded a packed house in the back courtyard at Long Island City Bar with a high-energy instrumental set. The last time this blog caught a full set from him was in the summer of 2017, when he blew the headlining rock band completely off the stage there. And what is Felix Slim’s secret side? In 2014, he released an absolutely awesome album of haunting Greek underground hash-smoking anthems, which may be the best thing he’s ever done so far.

Overseas Blues FLAC

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Felix Slim - Midtown Blues

Size: 322 MB
Time: 57:51
File: Flac
Released: 2014
Styles: Vintage Blues, Swing, Ragtime
Art: Front

1. Down The Dirt Road (4:06)
2. The Hoodoo Man Blues (3:40)
3. No Blues About My Baby (5:25)
4. Georgia Rag (2:29)
5. Kindhearted Woman (3:06)
6. Don't Sell Your Soul (3:15)
7. Searchin' The Deserts For The Blues (2:34)
8. I Hate You Cause I Love You (5:57)
9. Everybody Loves My Baby (4:44)
10. Future Blues (3:28)
11. Cele's Rag (2:12)
12. Precious Lord (3:52)
13. See My Jumper (5:51)
14. Red Hot (2:22)
15. Bye Bye, I'm Gonna See The King (4:42)

Mr. Slim has spent the last 20 years touring, recording and evolving an inimitable style. He has given clinics and master classes bringing his music to venues and festivals to the United States, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, England, Greece, Turkey, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Colombia, South Korea and Morocco. In 2004 he moved to Greece for a couple of years and discovered what would become his second musical passion besides the blues , Rebetiko music and the three double strings Bouzouki. Years later he will create The Grekos, a rebetiko duo where Felix sings and play bouzouki accompanied by bass-rhythm guitarist Kiko Machuca. In 2012 he had a role as a heckled blues musician in the independent movie “Las Aventuras de Lily Ojos de Gato” In 2014 Felix represented the Barcelona Blues Society in the biggest gathering of blues acts in the world, the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge IBC, which takes place every year on Beale St in Memphis, TN. In 2016 he moved to Brooklyn, NY and has become one of the most highly regarded blues musicians in the city, playing more than 200 shows in New York every year. In 2017 and 2018 he returned to the International Blues Challenge representing the Hondarribia Blues Society, becoming a finalist two years in a row in such important event, which opened the gate to the U.S. blues scene, touring Europe in June and July, and performing in the Wheeling Heritage Blues Fest, WV in August and the 1st Seoul Blues Festival in South Korea in October, sharing the stage with the Norman Jackson Band and the best of the best of the Korean blues scene. During 2019 Slim recorded his new album ‘Overseas Blues’ at Binky Griptite’s studio, toured Europe and the US several times, became Solo/Duo Winner in the Long Island Blues Challenge and Long Island Blues Society ambassador, along with Pamela Betti Band, in the IBC 2020.

Midtown Blues FLAC

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