Uploaded October 2010 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
From sizzling slide guitar and nitty-gritty harp to his gruff, resonating Okie twang, Bill "Watermelon Slim" Homans delivers acutely personal "workingman blues" with both hands on the wheel of life, a bottle of hooch in his pocket, and the Bible on the passenger seat. Currently on their 2010 "No Paid Holidays Tour", Watermelon Slim and The Workers also features Cliff Belcher on electric bass, Ronnie McMullen Jr. on guitar, and drummer Chris Stovall Brown.
Raised in North Carolina listening to the housekeeper sing John Lee Hooker songs, Slim attended Middlebury College on a fencing scholarship but left early to enlist for Vietnam. Laid up in a Vietnam hospital bed, he taught himself upside-down, left-handed slide guitar on a five dollar balsawood model, using a pick cut from a rusty coffee can and his Army-issued Zippo lighter as a slide. Slim first appeared on the music scene with the 1973 release of "Merry Airbrakes", the only known protest album recorded by a veteran during the Vietnam War. In the thirty plus years since, he's been a truck driver, forklift operator, sawmill worker, firewood salesman, collection agent, funeral officiator, and even a small time criminal. He also completed two undergraduate degrees and a master's degree, started a family, painted art, and joined Mensa, the social networking group for people with certified genius IQ's. Eventually, Slim landed in his current home state of Oklahoma farming watermelons, hence the stage name.
The big turning point in Slim's life came in 2002 when he suffered a near-fatal heart attack, giving him a new perspective on life and consequently, his second emergence as a performing musician. Now with a slew of albums under his belt, Slim's list of accomplishments include and an ever-increasing string of top blues awards and industry accolades; a 2007 induction into the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame; and a 2010 Blues Revue Magazine nod that ranks the band's 2006 release "Watermelon Slim & The Workers" #19 among the "Top 25 Greatest Blues Albums That Defined the Past Decade". "I've lived a fuller life than most people could in two," Slim says. "I've got a good education, lived on three continents, and played music with a bunch of immortal blues players. I've fought in a war and against a war. If my plane went down tomorrow, I'd go out on top."
Whether he's playing smooth and shimmery on his slide guitar or moanin' long and lonesome with a voice that grabs you by the heartstrings, when Watermelon Slim sings his songs wrought from Americana and traditional blues, you know every word is true.
From sizzling slide guitar and nitty-gritty harp to his gruff, resonating Okie twang, Bill "Watermelon Slim" Homans delivers acutely personal "workingman blues" with both hands on the wheel of life, a bottle of hooch in his pocket, and the Bible on the passenger seat. Currently on their 2010 "No Paid Holidays Tour", Watermelon Slim and The Workers also features Cliff Belcher on electric bass, Ronnie McMullen Jr. on guitar, and drummer Chris Stovall Brown.
Raised in North Carolina listening to the housekeeper sing John Lee Hooker songs, Slim attended Middlebury College on a fencing scholarship but left early to enlist for Vietnam. Laid up in a Vietnam hospital bed, he taught himself upside-down, left-handed slide guitar on a five dollar balsawood model, using a pick cut from a rusty coffee can and his Army-issued Zippo lighter as a slide. Slim first appeared on the music scene with the 1973 release of "Merry Airbrakes", the only known protest album recorded by a veteran during the Vietnam War. In the thirty plus years since, he's been a truck driver, forklift operator, sawmill worker, firewood salesman, collection agent, funeral officiator, and even a small time criminal. He also completed two undergraduate degrees and a master's degree, started a family, painted art, and joined Mensa, the social networking group for people with certified genius IQ's. Eventually, Slim landed in his current home state of Oklahoma farming watermelons, hence the stage name.
The big turning point in Slim's life came in 2002 when he suffered a near-fatal heart attack, giving him a new perspective on life and consequently, his second emergence as a performing musician. Now with a slew of albums under his belt, Slim's list of accomplishments include and an ever-increasing string of top blues awards and industry accolades; a 2007 induction into the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame; and a 2010 Blues Revue Magazine nod that ranks the band's 2006 release "Watermelon Slim & The Workers" #19 among the "Top 25 Greatest Blues Albums That Defined the Past Decade". "I've lived a fuller life than most people could in two," Slim says. "I've got a good education, lived on three continents, and played music with a bunch of immortal blues players. I've fought in a war and against a war. If my plane went down tomorrow, I'd go out on top."
Whether he's playing smooth and shimmery on his slide guitar or moanin' long and lonesome with a voice that grabs you by the heartstrings, when Watermelon Slim sings his songs wrought from Americana and traditional blues, you know every word is true.
