Magic Slim

Front Morris "Magic Slim" Holt, born in Torrance on August 7, 1937, developed a raw, hard-hitting guitar style that made him a favorite on the international blues club and festival circuit from the late 1970s well into the twenty-first century. His Chicago-based band, the Teardrops, at one time included his brothers Nick Holt on bass and Douglas "Lee Baby" Holt on drums. His stage name came from his childhood friend from Grenada, Blues Hall of Fame guitarist Magic Sam, and although the two guitarists had different styles, both created deep, instantly identifiable approaches to the blues and shared similar influences from their early days in Grenada. They sang in church, learned country music when it was more common than blues on the radio in the 1940s, and were fascinated by John Lee Hooker's 1949 hit "Boogie Chillen." Both were also born in areas now submerged beneath Grenada Lake. Holt was born on a farm in Torrance, a former sawmill town in Yalobusha County, and moved with his family to Grenada when he was about eleven. The family lived at 818 Union Street, where his mother ran a cafe nearby. His first instrument was a church piano, but he and his brother Nick also played a homemade one-string guitar made from a wire nailed to the wall between two bottles. He learned some guitar from his uncle Walter Miller, who played "Roll and Tumble Blues," and sometimes sat beneath the trees playing alongside his friend Sam Maghett. After Maghett took the name Magic Sam in Chicago, he gave Morris Holt the name Magic Slim. In Grenada, Magic Slim was also inspired in the 1950s by performances by Rufus Thomas, Willie Mabon, and especially the guitarists in Slim Harpo's band. He first tried Chicago in 1955 but found his skills were not yet equal to the city's competitive blues scene. He returned to Grenada and taught his brothers Nick and Douglas "Lee Baby," performing with them during the early 1960s in Grenada, Charleston, Minter City, and other Delta towns at juke joints that often charged twenty-five cents at the door while he also helped his stepfather haul and sell wood and homebrewed whiskey. After returning to Chicago around 1965 with new confidence and control of his instrument, he played with Robert "Mr. Pitiful" Perkins and the Teardrops, took over the band after Perkins left, and recorded with them for the local Ja-Wes label. His act grew more powerful and exciting until, by the 1980s, Magic Slim and the Teardrops were widely regarded at home and abroad as the quintessential Chicago blues band. Their trademark sound rested on his ability to turn almost any song into a churning blues shuffle driven by stinging guitar licks. With a repertoire of hundreds of songs, he recorded dozens of albums beginning in 1976, began touring Europe in 1978, developed a fanatical following in Lincoln, Nebraska, and later moved there with his family when they tired of ghetto life in Chicago. He won his first W.C. Handy Award in 1981 and was nominated more than forty times during the first three decades of the awards.

Grenada, Mississippi · United States