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Slim Harpo seemed to come out of nowhere in 1957 to make his impressive entrance into the world of blues
recordings. The American independent record business was keen to embrace a man with an unforgettable name, a strong
song –
I'm A King Bee
– and a finely-crafted minimalist style, at once familiar and novel. In 1961 he emerged again after
years of local scuffling to make an even more impressive entry into the American R&B and Popular Music charts – his
Rainin' In My Heart
became one of those barely-categorisable hits that just couldn't be ignored.
For numerous reasons, the story of Slim Harpo and his music is among the most fascinating in all blues and R&B. By many
benchmarks he was a success and for periods in his life he was in the spotlight – yet little, really, is known of him beyond his
fading circle of musicians, friends, and family in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Born in 1924, he was among the last of the original
down-home bluesmen, but also one of the first to register hits in the pop music charts. He was among the first wave of artists,
black and white, who developed the swamp pop sound in the late 1950s and early '60s, but he would have been the last to say
he was anything other than a bluesman. He was a brilliant
harmonica player yet was often seen in later promotional
photos as a guitar slinger. He or his wife wrote many of his
own blues songs yet when he gained wider recognition it
was for a ballad and several dance grooves. Harpo was at
odds with his main record producer and sometime song
collaborator – Jay Miller – most of the time, but together
the two men crafted a memorable sound and style that
merged down-home blues with other familiar sounds in
Louisiana music. Harpo lived, worked, and performed
most of his life in and around Louisiana, but he was feted
in the rock music circles of New York and Los Angeles
when he did appear there in his last few years. He re-
mained based in his home town of Baton Rouge all his life
and had the opportunity to give very few interviews. Ap-
parently an unassuming and calm man, he nevertheless
developed a very polished and slick stage appearance. He
died young, aged forty-five, just as his career was taking
off for the fourth and potentially most lucrative time at
home and abroad. He died young enough to avoid the
pressures that would probably have adulterated his music
to the point where this boxed set – containing one of the
most consistently good and coherent bodies of blues
recordings – would not have been possible.
Harpo's successes, measured in sales charts, were
modest. His first recording and signature song,
I'm A King
Bee
, was never more than a regional hit when issued in
1957 and it was not until 1961 that he registered a na-
tional hit. That year,
Rainin' In My Heart
went to number
17 on the 'Billboard' R&B chart and number 34 pop; in
1966,
Baby, Scratch My Back
went to number 1 R&B and
number 16 pop and both
Shake Your Hips
and
I'm Your
Bread Maker Baby
were 'bubbling under' the popular Hot
100; in 1967,
Tip On In
made number 37 R&B and created
small pop bubbles; and finally, in 1968,
Te-Ni-Nee-Ni-Nu
registered at number 36 on 'Billboard's' R&B chart.
Since his death in 1970 – some 45 years ago now –
Harpo's music has achieved greater recognition than his
chart placings would dictate. In 2008 he received a
posthumous Grammy Hall of Fame Award for
I'm A King
Bee
,
"a recording of lasting qualitative or historical signif-
icance."
His music has been revered by successive gener-
ations of blues aficionados and fans of Louisiana swamp
pop. Much of it has been reissued down the years, and his
name continues to appear on the lips of those he influ-
enced and in the works of blues researchers and writers.
There is an interesting consensus among writers and com-
mentators that, as Louisiana music expert John Broven
wrote, Harpo was
"one of the most accessible"
of the down
home bluesmen and that
"his recordings have a timeless
and mellow quality."
Singer and broadcaster Paul Jones
felt this was because,
"Harpo was a paradox, a downhome
bluesman who sounded like a city slicker."
Jones was part
of the early '60s wave of British groups playing in an R&B
style. As singer with the group Manfred Mann he admitted
that, initially,
"as the R&B boom was gathering pace, Slim
Harpo was too pop for me… 'blues purists' were supposed
not to like Slim Harpo. Blues were characterised by words
like harsh and brooding, agonised, or even tortured, wild
and dirty. Other words like relaxed and subtle made rare ap-
pearances, pleasing and melodic were distrusted, and en-
tertaining was almost an insult. Yet Slim Harpo warranted
all these and was no less a pure bluesman."
New Orleans
music expert Jeff Hannusch wrote:
"Slim Harpo was
Louisiana's most successful and celebrated blues artist of
all time. Next to Jimmy Reed, commercially, he was the most
successful down home blues artist of the 1960s... Known in
pop circles for two massive chart successes, the swamp pop
ballad 'Rainin' In My Heart,' and the hypnotic 'Baby
Scratch My Back,' he was one of the toughest blues artists
of his generation, but he was also comfortable embracing
rock 'n' roll, pop and even country music."
Writer Peter Gu-
ralnick described how Harpo's singing was
"as if a black
country and western singer or a white rhythm and blues
singer were attempting to impersonate a member of the op-
posite genre."
Pete Welding, writing in 'Rolling Stone'
magazine, considered Harpo
"a stylist who's carved out his
own niché and within the relatively narrow confines of that
approach, he's unbeatable – and, of course, immediately
recognisable... the emphasis is on forceful, direct rhythm,
tight and simple arrangements that work beautifully with
Slim's sly, laconic singing and harmonica playing and,
above all else, feeling."
Musician and researcher Steve Coleridge wrote
"Slim
Harpo stands out [from other bluesmen] in his depth of tex-
ture, his non-reliance on the 12 bar format ... the complex-
ity of the bass and guitar parts, and, above all, he could
write the best tunes."
Sam Charters noted on an LP sleeve
that
"his harmonica kept its Louisiana blues tinge whatever
style he played... there is a kind of understated emotional-