ROBIN HENKEL: Slippery Like a Watermelon Seed

The roots of acoustic blues guitar come from the river valleys of America’s heartland, where even earlier forms from Africa found their voice with the field workers a hundred years ago, in their churches and music shows. It was blue collar music, most often played on beat up instruments handed down or rescued from pawn shops, played by people in the country who might be playing with slides fashioned from old brass pipes or bottle necks made from real bottles. It was raw and sensual, not smooth or fancy.

Enter Robin Henkel, local bluesman who can play other styles but has made country blues his specialty. The San Diego native has released a dozen albums of music and brings to his latest, Slippery Like a Watermelon Seed, his special brand of delta blues for a new century. The disc, which won the San Diego Music Award for Best Blues Album last month, was produced by Henkel and Jeff Berkley; it is a generous batch of 13 instrumentals and vocals that are a minimalist’s dream–four have Gary Nieves on drums and bass by Henkel, but this is stripped-down, wooden slide guitar at its best.

Henkel’s style is hard to describe; on “Highway,” the opener, he lays down a walking lick and has fun on each verse, laying down lyrical patterns that mix individual notes and slide accents. He is good enough to have a lot going on, but manages to make it sound raw–delta blues music isn’t slick. Hearing Henkel as a vocalist is a riot, as “Take Me for a Ride in Your Mustang Rita” becomes a half-sung, half-talk boogie/travel tour of many of San Diego’s familiar avenues in a cool car, “Cruisin’ with my girl is where I like bein’ /So I can have some fun before I’m dead.”

There are many tracks here that display Henkel’s considerable prowess on unaccompanied acoustic guitar (“Bongoman Camping Adventure,” “Blues Waltz”) and dobro (“Mortero Road,” “Elmore”). Henkel is a master at laying down a concurrent rhythm, bassline and melodic statement-keeping all the balls in the air without losing any momentum.

His vocal on “Slippery” is about a lover, and his howl/growl gives a nod to the many delta bluesmen that would tell love-hate tales of their no good women in between the 12 bars of their blues songs. An unusual vibe is heard on “Argentina,” as drums similar to a marching band are heard, and meticulously picked slide notes spell out the melody-a fascinating highlight. “You’ll Never Know” is also outside the blues box to an extent, on this one there is an almost light jazz feel as Henkel plays a tune that seems almost made for a vocal, and then lays in the “singing” here and there with his bottleneck. Henkel is all over the neck on “Busker’s Bounce,” laying down a brisk and bluesy hook, popping in harmonics, a bass line, and a stinging lines of upper register notes with his slide.

Slippery Like a Watermelon Seed is the latest from Robin Henkel, a treat for lovers of blues and guitar.