DAN PICKETT & TARHEEL SLIM "DAN PICKETT & TARHEEL SLIM" - 1949

New York City was never a great town for blues and R&B. Audiences here tended to think of themselves as more sophisticated and uptown they bought mostly jazz and gospel, downtown it was show tunes and pop singers, but that doesn't mean there were no blues or R&B recorded here, in fact there was a thriving blues scene, much of it centered around a group of players who had grown up in the North Carolina area and included Sonny Terry, Brownie and Stick McGhee, and today's subject-- Allen Bunn, aka Tarheel Slim. Born Alden Bunn in the country side outside of Rocky Mount, North Carolina in 1924, Bunn is rarely written about these days, which is suprising and sad since he made quite a few good records, one certified two sided masterpiece, not to mention a couple of almost hits. Somebody must have bought his records since he kept making them, recording for over 21 years, and they're all fairly easy to find today which means they pressed plenty of copies.
So who was Allen Bunn/Tarheel Slim, and why should we care?
Bunn grew up in the countryside, working in the tobacco fields and listening to his mom's Blind Boy Fuller 78's. Eventually he learned to play guitar, and was heard singing and playing in church by Thurman Ruth, the leader of a local gospel quartet called the Selah Jubilee Singers (they'd soon drop the Jubilee part of their name). Ruth recruited Bunn into his group (putting off his debut until tobacco season was over) and for the next eight years he sang baritone and played guitar with the Selah Singers, who also recorded secular material as the Larks, the Four Barons, and possibly a few other names. As the Larks they cut some nice sides for the Apollo label, and Bunn's lead vocals and guitar can be heard on their 1951 single My Little Sidecar… - more great info about Tarheel Slim here: The Hound Blogtrax:
Dan Pickett
1. Baby How Long 2. You Got To Do Better 3. Ride To A Funeral In A V-8 4. Decoration Day 5. Drivin' That Thing 6. That's Grieving Me 7. 99 1/2 Won't Do 8. Baby Don't You Want To Go 9. Chicago Blues 10. Something's Gone Wrong 11. Early One Morning 12. Lemon Man 13. Number Writer 14. Drivin' That Thing #2 15. I Can Shake It
Tarheel Slim
16. Somebody Changed The Lock 17. You're A Little Too Slow 18. I Have Found No Friend - 1 19. Get On The Road To Glory - 1
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