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CD REVIEW
Slim Pickens
Happy Trails
One of a slew of (mostly unsung) talented roots artists you can regularly catch in the Byron Bay area venues. Slim Pickens is singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer with a penchant for the aesthetics of simpler times. Think Woody Guthrie meets Ramblin’ Jack Elliot with a little Ry Cooder unpredictability thrown into the mix.
Most commonly appearing alongside trusted buddy Dr Baz, here Pickens releases a selection of songs under his own name, taking care of all vocals, guitars, mandolin, banjo and bass and recruiting Baz for some piano and accordion and Neil McCann for drums where required.
There’s one original composition on the record, written about local music identity Alison Pearl and how she fended off a mugger in New York City. The remaining material reveals Pickens’ musical inspirations, opening with Mississippi John Hurt’s ‘My Creole Belle’, stopping at Guthrie’s ‘Dust Can’t Kill Me’ and ‘Vigilante Man’, old-timey songs ‘I Will Fly Away’ (dedicated to his father), ‘Tamp Em Up Solid’ (with acknowledgement of Ry Cooder’s version) and ‘Can’t Get That Stuff No More’ (Tampa Red). Most of these songs also demonstrate Pickens’ lively sense of humour.
Part folk, part cowboy, part Cajun, Pickens assimilates his loves with delicacy and ardour. If this record doesn't make you smile, you could be beyond help.
Martin Jones – Rhythms Magazine
Dec 2010
Ivan Perger
Raw & Grizzled
Ah The hills of Byron Shire are riddled with characters weird and wonderful.
Ivan Perger explains why it took him over sixty years to release his debut
album... facing mortality prompted a desire to leave a record of his thoughts,
particularly for his son. So, in the tradition of some of his favourite artists - he lists Johnny Cash, John Prine and Hank Williams - Ivan summoned some staightforward songs from the soul.
In days gone past, such gems would have been lost and forgotten. But anyone can
make a record these days. Fortunately for Ivan, Slim Pickens was around to help
him make it properly. Adding a selective array of instrumentation himself, Pickens
helped summons the assistance of some gifted local talent, including fiddle and
accordion player Gleny Rae and drummer Neil McCann.
Perger's voice is the perfect balance of grizzled and frail, the kind that lends songs
as direct and personal as his, both authority and poignancy. He’s not going to win any vocalist of the year awards, but a more polished approach would only detract from such homegrown handiwork. Hence the album title.
Martin Jones, Rhythms Magazine 2011
Caffes Are For Writing Songs
Ivan Perger
Alright, It might not be the greatest album title ever conjured, but Ivan’s complete disregard for commercial appeal is part of his unique charm. As Ivan attests in the liner notes to his new collection. “Listening to the radio makes me want to do songs differently to the way I do, but then, it wouldn’t be me. Just a copy of Others.”
A newcomer to songwriting at a mature age, Perger cares for only delivering the sentiment and melody as directly and honestly as possible. Slim Pickens as producer, arranger and multi instrumentalist, is Perger’s primary partner in crime there – allowing those songs to bloom with as little distraction or interference as possible.
That said, it’s interesting to hear the pair introducing some new elements to Perger’s folk based compositions. ‘Red Lips Red Dress’ opens as a kind of Twin Peaks spooky cocktail jazz exploration, with brushed drums and saxopohone riffing from Alfredo Lopes. ‘Killing Time’ is infused with a Calypso feel and ‘Heaven Or Hell’ lands somewhere between New Orleans and Tijuana with Sonya Lopes’ trumpet. The most touching moment comes when Perger’s wheelchair bound son Zac steps up to sing along (harmonies and all) in ‘Hey Boy’, an ebullient song walking around together in their dreams.
Rhythms review November 2015 – Martin Jones
Trip To Mars - Slim Pickens
I became a fan of Slim Pickens with the release of the Hankering album in 2014 –a fine presentation of Hank Williams tunes – and was eager to hear Trip To Mars as I’m a huge John Prine fan. This collection of 12 of Mr Prine’s songs is a beauty and presents some of the better known as well as a couple of maybe rarer tunes. Prine fans, and those who appreciate great songs in general, would be aware of Paradise, Hello In There, Spanish Pipedream, Please Don’t Bury Me and Souviners, but there’s fine renderings of The Torch Singer, Billy The Bum and Crazy Bone (off Mr Prine’s last album). Slim Pickens is a man and a band and collectively they do justice to the songs in a primarily traditional country style with fiddle, pedal steel and guitars and Slim’s vocals are as smooth as the songs often require and just about as pure as any country fan could want. A truly heartfelt tribute to the mam and the songs delivered with respect and honour.
Jon Wolfe - Tamworth Country Music Capital News (2021)
"Thinkin’ Out Loud" review
A local Northern NSW feller, Ivan Perger has, with the encouragement of mate Slim Pickens, only come to songwriting later in life. And it seems he’s got a taste for it. As Perger says in the liner notes, in 60 odd years, I’ve lived and experienced much. Maybe it took that long before I had something to write about.”
A lot of other “writers” should take a leaf out of that book! Perger doesn’t take his new found craft for granted and his sincerity shines through in each of these 16 home-grown vignettes. With Pickens, Harry Baird, Gleny Rae, Sarah Tindley and pedal steel master Ray Cullen backing him, Perger sits you down for a long and intimate conversation, fiddles, banjos and double basses clothing his musings. Charming from go to whoa.
Martin Jones, Rhythms Magazine May 2014
Rhythms Magazine Review April 2014 for “Hankering”
NSW North Coast local Slim Pickens has kept himself busy in recent times, particularly now that he’s set up his own home recording studio. Here he indulges his love for Hank Williams with a tribute album to country music’s greatest singer-songwriter that coruscates with both personality and reverence. Though Pickens is capable of handling most instrumentation himself, he assembled a fantastic band to back him, with regular cohort Dr Baz on accordion, Neil McCann on drums and Dougie Bull on bass. The venerable Ray Cullen adds sweet old-school pedal steel and special guests include Gleny Rae on fiddle and Warren Earl, who plays some very tasty electric guitar.
Slim’s vocal approach is way more laid back than Williams’ and that’s perhaps what gives this album its unique character. His version of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”, for example sounds like it was recorded on morphine (that’s meant as a compliment).
The band is more than capable of getting perky on songs like “Fly Trouble” (great guitar solo) and “Move It On Over”. I’d prefer to listen to this homemade, heartfelt tribute to Hank over any star-studded big studio production any day.
Martin Jones
Hankering - Slim Pickens
My late husband Jazzer Smith was one of the biggest Hank Williams fans I’ve ever met. He loved the “Prince of Pain”with a passion, and I suppose that kind of obsession was a little infectious. Needless to say, Hank does it for me too.
That’s why I was thrilled to get a parcel in the mail a few weeks ago from an old mate, from up Byron Bay way, ..Slim Pickens.
Slim’s a real character. He reckons his fate was sealed when he disappeared
one day at crawling age and his parents eventually found him sound asleep in his dad’s guitar case. Now based on the NSW North Coast, Slim plays his own style of old blues, roots and old-timey music - songs that go as far back as the 1920’s. He said he somehow got stuck in the 30’s and just loves all that old, depression era music. Slim has played many festivals in Australia and in Europe. A previous album, Happy Trails, went to #2 on the Australian Blues and Roots charts for airplay - and his sixth studio album just arrived on my doorstep.
It’s a 10 - tracker called Hankering - don’t you just love the title?
Nine of the ten are Hank Williams compositions, while the exception, Fly Trouble, was recorded by Hank and written by a trio - Wilds, Rose and Biggs. In choosing the Hank songs for the disc, Slim didn’t just stick to the usual suspects. There are hank songs I hadn’t heard in years - and some never before, which was a really pleasant surprise.
It was recorded at Red Gate Records, Slim’s home studio at South Golden Beach - what a dreamy address. And he couldn’t have picked a better dream team to help bring Hank’s songs to life. Ïn my mind I put together my ultimate band to record on this and amazingly, it came to be,” Slim said. “Gleny Rae (on fiddle) and Dougie Bull (on slap bass) from Gleny Rae Virus and her Playboys, came up from Newcastle. Their old pedal steel player, Ray Cullen, came down from Brisbane. Hot shot guitar player Warren Earl recently moved up here from Melbourne and he joined in. My old playing partners, the very talented Neil NcCann on drums and harmonies and Dr Baz on accordion, completed the contingent.” Together, they faithfully reproduced the authentic - sounding country, for which Hank was renowned, with the utmost respect.
Slim opens the CD with I Can’t Get You Off Of My Mind and closes it with Jambalaya, traditional Hank fare.
In between there are some absolute gems like Move It On Over, Weary Blues, Honky
Tonkin and Why Don’t You Love Me. The duet with Gleny I Won’t Be Home No More,
is an absolute pearler, House Of Gold is a classic and I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry has heartache etched in every line. If you’ve got a hankering for hank Williams music, you certainly won’t be disappointed with this disc. I think old Hank would even agree that Slim Pickens has done his songs mighty proud.
Anna Rose - Northern Daily Leader, Tamworth
Trip To Mars - Slim Pickens
So, if we were all asked to pick out our favourite dozen John Prine songs, I wonder how much crossover there’d be. Ask around. I bet you’ll get wildly varying answers. Prine was that kind of artist – a writer with an astonishingly broad and deep catalogue. So Slim Pickens’ personal love letter on the passing of Prine is exactly that - personal. No “Sam Stone”, no Angel From Montgomery, no “Mexican Home”.
Obviously the album that means the most to Pickens is Diamonds In The Rough. At least half the selections on Trip To Mars come from that album, a couple more from the self titled debut and Sweet Revenge. The exceptions are more recent songs “Egg & Daughter Night, Linkoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)” and “Morning Train”. It sounds like Pickens had a clear idea of how he wanted each song arranged and did all of the recording and much of the playing himself. He had already started recording the concept when Prine became sick and died. We can only imagine what affect that had on the project. Instead of causing him to give up, it inspired Pickens to produce some of his best recordings to date. With some songs , like “Hello In There”, he chooses to experiment with the instrumental arrangement. On others he remains more faithful to the original. In some he sings so uncannily like the original author, you almost forget you’re listening to a cover. Throughout all, though, Pickens inhabits the original spirit of these great songs with an authenticity and reverence.
Martin Jones – Rhythms Magazine 2021
