July 15 Show: Interviews with Watermelon Slim and Panorama's Ben Schenck

Saturday was the Little Apple Jazz Festival, featuring six bands including bluesman Watermelon Slim and New Orleans-based jazz band Panorama.  I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview Watermelon Slim and Ben Schenck, the clarinet player and bandleader for Panorama.  On the show this week, I played the two interviews interspersed with music and commentary.  You can listen to it all here or on my podcast.  For the order of songs and topics discussed, see below.





Watermelon Slim interview:
1. Hard Times--4:18--from Watermelon Slim & the Workers
Teaching in a French prison/Conducting funerals
2. Everybody's Down on Me--4:59--from No Paid Holidays
Moving to Clarksdale
3. Northwest Regional Medical Center Blues--5:27--from Okiesippi Blues (with Super Chikan)
Slim's touring/African thumb piano
4. Within You Without You/Dinde--6:27--from Okiesippi Blues
National Steel Guitar/Whiskey slides/Triangle peg game/Bowling
5. Max the Baseball Clown--2:38--from No Paid Holidays
Getting beaten up/Cell phones/Why Slim sings the blues
6. And When I Die--4:37--from No Paid Holidays
Future records/Recording industry woes/Slim's country records/Commercialization
7. 18, 18 Wheeler--3:59--from Escape from the Chicken Coop
Watermelon Slim's signoff
8. Archetypal Blues No. 2--from No Paid Holidays

Ben Schenck interview:
1. Come Out Swingin'--3:29
Band origins and approach to music
2. Oy Tate S'iz Git (Oh Daddy That's Good)--2:40
The draw of New Orleans
3. New Orleans Shout--3:22
Lesser-known influences
4. Martinique--5:16
The Panorama Brass Band
5. Down in Honky Tonk Town--3:22
The universal nature of the music
6. Romski Chochek--4:00
*All songs from Panorama's latest CD Come Out Swingin'