In the summer of 2010, Richard “Lynwood Slim” Duran was stricken with a variety of health problems which were of such a serious nature he was near death. I began to pull his recordings out of my library and take them out for a spin with greater regularity. These records were never too far away from my ears mind you, but as the saying goes, absence made the heart grow fonder.

Slim recovered and almost immediately began to make contributions to the blues canon. He started performing again both on the bandstand and in the studio. He sounded marvelous. It was as if he had never been away. The title of his upcoming project, Hard to Kill seemed to be an utterly appropriate title, at the time. It now, of course, is sadly ironic. As many of our readers know Lynwood Slim suffered a massive stroke last June and passed away on August 4^th.

Hard to Kill is a wonderful musical statement from this consummate musician as it features him with his friends, colleagues and protégé’s from around the world.

We start our journey where Slim began, and that is with a Jimmy Reed tune entitled I Found Love. Slim has acknowledged that the first blues man of whom he became aware was Jimmy Reed, whose material could be found on mainstream commercial radio back in the early 1960’s. For this tune, Slim traveled north to San Francisco to lay this previously unreleased track down with bay area based guitarist Johnny Cat Soubrand.

The album’s second track Baby Please Don’t Go has this blues standard becoming “Slimotized” as he, along with Italian guitarist Alberto Colombo, gives this familiar song a swinging, jump blues reading. This is the first of four tunes sprinkled throughout Hard to Kill which featured Colombo. These tracks were recorded in Gallarte, Italy, in the summer of 2009 for Colombo’s album, Never Look Back. The remaining three sides with Colombo are all originals co-written by the inter-continental tandem. On Call You No More the Italian guitarist puts listeners in mind of Jimmie Vaughan’s playing on this mid tempo shuffle. As usual, both he and Slim work around each other gracefully. The remaining two Colombo tracks Wake Up and the slow blues Close to You are showcases for the guitarist’s versatility and Slim’s consistency to interpret material in a variety of blues dialects.

On the album’s third track, Slim travels to the Netherlands to record with that country’s The Blues Crowns. I Chose to Sing the Blues was originally a Ray Charles vehicle which demonstrates how the genius could take rhythm and blues, give it a gospel flair with jazz overtones and make it swing. The version heard here loses none of that and sounds like it could have very easily been written with Lynwood Slim in mind. Slim has a tendency to do that to virtually any piece of music he engages. This tune is the first chance we get to hear Slim show off his chops as a flautist. The title track of a 2006 album by The Blue Crowns is Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson’s Person to Person and it also appears on Hard to Kill. This is an absolutely stunning rendition of this tune which draws more inspiration from the 1960’s version where Vinson collaborates with Cannonball Adderly, than it does Cleanhead’s 1950’s original.

The Roy Gaines tune All of My Life is the first of two sides that Slim plays with Italy’s The Red Wagons, the band I like to call ‘Rome Full of Blues’. These two tunes were recorded in the Italian capitol, which is the hometown of this ensemble. This swinging Little Big Band’s second entry is the old B.B. King tune, Jump With Me Baby. These two songs originally appeared on the band’s 2012 release Jumpin’ with Friends.

The worldwide journey continues as Slim recorded a track with Parisian Nico Duportal and his band Rosebud Blue Sauce in Sauvetere, France. Their interpretation of the Jimmy Liggins tune Don’t Put Me Down originally appeared on the band’s album, About Love. This slow blues is the perfect showcase for Slim’s signature singing style.   

The tune Old Honky Tonk Piano Roll Blues was recorded in Los Angeles back in 2005 and features guitarist Kid Ramos. This plaintive, slow blues instrumental’s inclusion here is special in a lot of ways. Ramos and Slim were frequent collaborators and very dear friends. This Herbie Mann tune gives Slim a chance to feature his flute playing again as he was heavily influenced and remained a fan of the flautist and his music. Mann passed away just two years prior to this previously unreleased performance.

Another two songs which have never appeared on any previous release come by way of the collaboration with French guitarist, Farid Bouzit. He came to Los Angeles in 2010 and laid down some tracks, two of which are heard here. Both are Bouzit original compositions entitled, Almost Free and Juste Toi Et Moi, the latter Slim sings in French.

The next stop comes via an old Paul Gayten tune and was recorded in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with The Igor Prado Band and the song You Better Believe. This tune is also one of the several previously unreleased tracks on this album, but is scheduled to appear on the Igor Prado Band’s upcoming release entitled, Way Down South.

The penultimate number on this release brings Slim back home to Southern California. The only live recording on Hard to Kill was recorded at the Tiki Bar in Costa Mesa, California. He, along with the Swedish band Trickbag, takes on the blues standard, Jimmy Rodgers’ That’s Alright. This tune was recorded on May 17, 2012, and was one of the first live performances after his almost two year absence from the stage. The song also appears on Trickbag’s 2013 release ...With Friends. The song features the harmonica playing of West Weston from England. The inclusion of this song on Hard to Kill is perfect.

This sixteen track, sixty five minute travelogue contains fifteen songs all produced by Slim through the years. The album’s last tune might have more appropriately been labeled as a “bonus track” as Slim doesn’t appear on the song. The tune was produced and sung by Mark Dufresne and is a tribute to Slim himself entitled, Lynwood Slim. The song originally appeared on Mark Dufruense’s debut album way back in 1996 entitled Out of That Bed.

As Slim remarks at the opening of the song That’s Alright, “Music is the universal language, without a doubt.” He played blues with musicians from countless countries and at least three continents. He brought these international musicians to his homeland and helped open up the European and South American markets to musicians from the United States.

As I listen to Hard to Kill this evening for the umpteenth time, I realize that the sadly ironic title of this album is perfect. Thanks to Lynwood Slim and his contribution to the language the blues lives on, it lives everywhere and it will live forever.

- David Mac