Too Slim and the Taildraggers will be making a live appearance at the Sapphire Room in Boise on Thursday, December 27. This show is part of a tour the band will be making, including closing out Seattle’s renowned Highway 99 Blues Club on New Years Eve as the last band ever to play there. Playing powerhouse blues-rock music, Too Slim and the Taildraggers were created in 1986 by local musician Tim Langford.
Too Slim and the Taildraggers have toured internationally and have been known for fantastic live shows. Many of their albums have received critical as well as commercial acclaim, and Blood Moon was voted Blues Rock Album of the Year at the 2016 “Jimi Awards” and was also nominated for Blues Rock Album of the Year at the2016 Blues Blast Music Awards. Tim Langford talked with The Boise Beat about the blues, the Pacific Northwest, Too Slim and the Taildraggers, his music and his life as a musician.
Q: You play gritty, original blues rock. Who were your influences?
A: I grew up listening to late 60’s, early 70’s blues-rock by groups like Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Allman Brothers and others. Their influences turned me on to older blues guys, playing guitar and figuring out where those guys got their influences. People like Freddie King, B.B. King, Otis Rush, T-Bone Walker and from there I worked my way backwards. All the way back to Robert Johnson and Sun House. I would say my main influences once I started playing guitar were Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Dicky Betts, Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top, and Robin Trower.
Q: You’re from the Pacific Northwest. Does it feel like home when you play here?
A:Â Oh yes, it sure does! I grew up in Spokane and from there I moved to Seattle, then to Nashville for five years and now I’ve ended up here in the Boise area. Definitely the Pacific Northwest is my home!
Q: You have a new album, High Desert Heat, with some killer guitar work on songs like A Little More True…….
A: We recorded that in Nashville in February of 2018. On the new album, my bass player, Zach Kasik contributed some new songs too, to add a little more to the sound. He played a demo and I said, “Hey, that’s a good song!”. We were working on writing the songs throughout 2017 and we did some collaboration playing, did the demo and then went down there and banged it out. We did it all live….there are a couple of songs getting a lot of airplay on Sirius XM—a song called Trouble and One Step at a Time is pretty heavy in the rotation on Bluesville. I think the album is a good representation of our version of blues-rock. We also add some traditional elements in there. I also grew up listening to bands like Lynrd Skynrd, the Marshall Tucker Band—the country/blues/Southern rock type of thing. We also did a cover of Time Has Come Today by the Chambers Brothers. I saw the Chambers Brothers at the Waterfront Blues Festival about fifteen years ago probably and ever since then I’ve thought about that song and that it would be a great song to cover. I’ve always wanted to do a cover of it!
Q: You have a great song that you did called Stoned Again. It has some great slide guitar on it. What’s so special about the sound of slide guitar?
A: It just has that raunchy, urban blues sound, but can also be a very melodic instrument. Probably one of the best slide guitarists that doesn’t get enough credit is George Harrison . He’s a killer slide player! My main slide influences were Duane Allman and Elmore James. That is who got me interested in playing slide guitar. Duane was the master in the blues-rock genre, but at the other end, George Harrison played really melodic slide guitar. I probably come more from the Elmore James school of melodic.
Q: You’re back again at the Riverside Hotel, this time in the Sapphire Room. You must like playing there and in Boise……
A:Â I always have a good time playing in Boise. We’ve done Live at Five several times at the Riverside Hotel. We did the Blues and Bones Festival here last summer. We’re happy to be in the Sapphire Room, it’s a great room. I’m looking forward to seeing everybody at the show. We’re on track to sell it out so that’s great!
Q: Tell me a great story from the road……
A:Â I’ve been on the road for thirty-plus years, so….we were driving to Montana once in the wintertime and it was icy out. We had a gig in Helena, Montana and we were driving down the freeway when the back end of the van started to slip and go the other way. We braced and tried to cushion for the impact and went off the side. A guy going the opposite way called a tow truck for us and we were back on the road in thirty minutes. No damage done!
Q: Tell me about your band…….
A: We started performing in 1986 as Too Slim and the Taildraggers. My current bandmates are Jeff “Shakey” Fowlkes on the drums and Zack Kasik on bass. They both live in Nashville. I’ve been doing this for thirty-some years and have toured all over the world. The album Desert Heat was on the charts on the Billboard Top 100. It has charted on BB King’s Bluesville Rack-O-Blues Chart. We’ve had six or seven albums that have all charted numerous times on the Billboard Charts.
Q: Your songs with Too Slim and the Taildraggers are mostly all original. How do you keep your writing fresh?
A:Â I try to listen to all kinds of music. Evereytime I go in to write some new songs it’s a challenge not to repeat yourself or follow some kind of a formula. It takes a conscious effort not to regurgitate, which is hard to do because there are so many influences so many people have, so much music out there. You’re bound to have those influences but it’s needed to be presented in a new way.
Q: What is Essie’s South American Sauce?
A: Essie’s South American Sauce Company is something my wife owns. The family started making the sauce in the 60’s and 70’s. They had a restaurant in North Dakota called the 7 Seas. They started bottling it up because people liked it so much and wanted to take it home and use it on the barbeque she took it over from her mother, the original Essie. She made it South American style and got a writeup in Field and Stream about it. It took off and Nancy bought the company from her mother in 2007 and has owned it ever since then. It’s a meat marinade, soy based and it’s manufactured in North Dakota. It is in grocery stores there and also available on Amazon. It even comes in a half-gallon jug. You can check it out at essiessauce.com.
Too Slim and the Taildraggers will bring their unique vision of blues-rock to the Sapphire Room at The Riverside Hotel on Thursday, December 27. The doors open at 6:30pm and the show starts at 7:30pm. Tickets and info are available here on the Sapphire Room’s website. Info about Too Slim and the Taildragger’s music, videos and albums are on the band’s website here.
