Nutmeg Slim
Black Eyed Sally’s Southern Kitchen and Bar
Hartford
Jan. 9, 2025
If there’s one instrument I associate with the blues, it’s the harmonica, and Nutmeg Slim let it wail at Black Eyed Sally’s.
Before he took the stage this past Thursday night, the Black Eyed Sally’s house band warmed up the crowd. They started with “Folsom Prison Blues” by the great Johnny Cash. The singer didn’t try to replicate Cash’s distinctive drawl, instead using a low growl to bring out the sorrow of Cash’s lyrics
Next they went into a rendition of the classic “Got My Mojo Workin’.” The fun of blues music is that it sings about situations that are immediately relatable to anyone in the audience. Where R&B and other music forms spice up the emotions with the performance style of their genres, blues is almost guttural in its insistence on getting straight to the point: I want this woman, but she don’t want me, so I’m gonna sing about it.
Once he joined the band, Nutmeg Slim turned out to be a little old man I’d walked past a couple times when I was recording the house band. He shuffled onto stage, but once he was up there he came alive with directions to the band, and with his harmonica.
My favorite song of the night was definitely Howlin’ Wolf’s “Built for Comfort.” I’ve found myself packing on the pounds in the last couple of years, and at first it made me a little self conscious as a guy who’d been pretty skinny with minimal effort. Eventually I accepted that my desire to be svelte did not outweigh my desire to avoid the gym at all costs. I could relate to Nutmeg Slim when he sang that he’s built for comfort, not for speed. As a man whose track star days are long behind him, I’m definitely not built for speed anymore.
Listening to a cover band can be a different experience depending on your level of familiarity with the music. When you’re listening to songs you’ve heard before, it can bring back good memories and transport you back to childhood, your first love, or some other pleasant place.
Listening to new music takes you to an unexpected place. The moment of discovery when you hear a good cover is a fun moment in and of itself, both because of the sense of discovery and the way that your imagination kicks into overdrive, trying to figure out what the original sounded like. Then later, when you track down the original, that sense of discovery is renewed by comparing the differences between the cover and the original.
At Black Eyed Sally’s, I got introduced to a bunch of new music, and kicked off a new year with the blues; 2025 is looking up already.
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Black Eyed Sally’s has an open mic/blues jam every Thursday evening.
Jamil goes to Parkville Market for their live jam session.