TARHEEL SLIM/ Complete Recordings

 

TARHEEL SLIM/ Complete Recordings

 

           

Tarheel Slim (real name Allen Rathel Bunn) has recorded many tracks in various styles, Gospel, doo-woop, pop, Country blues, R&B, Country and even proto-rockabilly... His best blues tracks are highly praised among blues buffs all around the world but a lot of his recordings (mostly outside the "real" blues idiom) have been neglected. This post tries to gather all the sides recorded by Tarheel Slim from the 50's to the 70's, whether blues or not, whether still great and masterpieces or corny and a little outdated. It thus gives a truer portrait of an important artist who left us much too early. There is still one track missing. If anyone got it and would share here it would be great.

         Born 24 September 1923 at Bailey, NC. Allen Bunn worked as a child in the tobacco fields while listening to her mother's record collection, mainly Blind Boy Fuller's discs. He learned guitar with local bluesmen,

Brownie McGhee's lessons and Fuller's records and he joined the Selah Singers, a local Gospel group who would also record secular material as The Larks or The Four Barons. Bunn often sang lead and played guitar with the group, recording a few tracks during the late 40's/early 50's. That lead him to his first recording as a feature artist in 1951 under his real name Allen Bunn. Those records while excellent went nowhere and our man had to wait to meet New York City producer and record store owner Bobby Robinson to see his records being better distributed and enjoying good sales.

        

In 1955, Allen Bunn married the singer Anna Sanford aka Little Ann and together they recorded duos which sold quite well under different names (The Lovers, Tarheel Slim and Little Ann..). But it's his December 1958 session that led him to blues fame when, under the wise guidance of Bobby Robinson, Tarheel Slim waxed two all time masterpieces Wildcat tamer and Number 9 Train. The backing band is first rate with scratchy guitar by Wild Jimmy Spruill although it must be stated that it's Slim himself who plays the fantastic guitar solos. For a while Tarheel Slim himself or with Little Ann enjoyed a good dose of commercial success and went to tour the USA with R&B packages. But the mid-60's were hard for those kinds of music and Tarheel Slim dropped out of sight, making a living outside music. He was anyway "rediscovered" by the great and unflagging Pete Lowry who recorded him at several opportunities and made him possible to appear as a solo guitarist (in the pure Piedmont style) on several Festivals. He had to play on Festivals in the USA and tour Europe and Pete Lowry was preparing another Tarheel Slim's album, this time with a band when Tarheel was diagnosed with throat cancer. He finally lost his battle with the disease in a New YorkHospital on 21 August 1977.

         His wife Little Ann (born in 1935) lived until 2004.

         Thanks a lot to all who helped for this post, mainly Jose Yraberra, Alain J., Pete Lowry of course and Ballas.

                                                         Gérard HERZHAFT

 

TARHEELSLIM Discography