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Sweet Little Black Spider and Other Songs From the Trenches of the Blues

by Franck L. Goldwasser

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1.
Bring Me My Forty-Five 04:50
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2.
Tyranny Is Rising 04:25 video
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3.
Don't Say You're Sorry 03:46
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4.
Sweet Little Black Spider 05:44 video
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5.
You Made A Wrong Choice 04:18
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6.
She's Hip 04:34
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7.
Struggle In My Hometown 04:58
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8.
Blues For Eddie Hazel 03:37
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9.
Don't Give Up On Me, Baby 05:21
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10.
Evil Wind Blowin' 03:58
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11.
T.S.O.B.C. 02:43
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12.
Nosluf's Last Laugh 03:08
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13.
The Day I Met Sonny Rhodes (spoken word with music) 04:11
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14.
Larry Blake's, Memphis Charlie and Nick-The-Greek (spoken word with music) 11:07
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15.
Kasper's and the Blues Barrels (spoken word with music) 03:02
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16.
The Last of the Oakland Juke Joints (spoken word with music) 06:51
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17.
East Bay Guy (spoken word with music) 06:10
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18.
Robert Jr. and the Superfly Coat (spoken word with music) 04:01
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19.
The Mystery of the Trash-O-Caster (spoken word with music) 05:19
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20.
Ikey Renrut and Me (spoken word with music) 04:46
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about

A thirty-seven year veteran of the West Coast blues scene, Franck L. Goldwasser (formerly known as “Paris Slim” in international blues circles) paid his dues in the juke joints and nightclubs of the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1980’s, gigging alongside some of the most iconic blues luminaries of our time, including Jimmy McCracklin, Lowell Fulson, PeeWee Crayton, Percy Mayfield and Charlie Musselwhite. A vital contributor to the San Francisco East Bay and Portland, Oregon scenes, Franck has appeared at festivals and concerts across America and Europe; his guitar playing has fueled recordings by artists as diverse as Jimmy Dawkins, Curtis Salgado, Joe Louis Walker, Arthur Adams, R.J. Mischo, Fillmore Slim, Hosea Leavey,
Mark Hummel, Harmonica Slim, Sugaray Rayford, Byther Smith and BMA laureates The Mannish Boys of which he is one of the founding members.
"Sweet Little Black Spider", Franck L. Goldwasser's first release in over five years, was forty years in the making and a lifelong ambition for the Paris-born-bluesman. "My dear friend Byrd (Hale) called me out of the
blue one day. We traveled all over the South together in the 80's, but somehow we fell out of touch for twenty years", he explains. Hale, producer and host of Stanford University’s KZSU’s weekly blues showcase “Blues With A Feeling” for nearly three decades, recalls running into Goldwasser at a gig in San Jose in the winter of ’18: “We had a brief talk, and Franck sounded real down, claimed he had nothing to say. That made me kind of sad because here's Franck, a dyed-in-the-wool blues guy who's paid his dues in the trenches playing with
the giants, one of the most respected blues guitarists today, down in the dumps!” That's when the concept germinated in Hale’s mind for a device that might help his old friend getting back on track. “For quite some time I'd been thinking that Franck and (Christoffer) Kid Andersen together in the studio would produce pure dynamite”, Hale goes on. “I decided to call him up and I said, You’re going into Kid's place and you're cutting a new album". Back in 2006, when he was just launching his home-based Greaseland recording facility, Andersen, the Norwegian-born award-winning multi-instrumentist who is quickly becoming the blues world’s most in-demand producer, had invited Goldwasser to come and lay down some tracks with him. “I'd told him
I wanted to cut something real raw, a three-piece live in the studio, greasy and lo- fi”, recalls the French blues guitarist. “Beaming with anticipation and without blinking, Kid just said: Can I play bass on it? I knew right then that we would have to make that record, sooner or later”, Goldwasser reminisces. While the songwriting is the album’s focus, the music on “Sweet Little Black Spider” is a definite electric blues guitar offering. With backing from just Andersen on bass and Charlie Musselwhite Band drummer June Core, Goldwasser’s idiomatic and brazenly bold stylings get plenty of room to stretch out and invade while never getting in the way of the song’s narative. Voicing his enthusiasm for the result, producer Kid Andersen exults: "This shit is real! This record is so great! I'm so proud that I got to record this!” Particularly taken with the spoken word pieces, which make up nearly half of the double-disc outing, Kid adds: “I'd done several spoken word projects in the past, but never within the blues genre; that was very fresh and exciting for me, because it added perspective, extra texture and depth to the whole.”
Slymbird Records is excited to introduce a long overdue, original work by an artist who unapologetically confesses, "For the first time in all of my recording career, I have an album that I'm proud of; it’s 100% me,
warts-and-all, it’s way back-in-the-alley and it smokes!” “Sweet Little Black Spider" is a re-birth of sorts for Franck L. Goldwasser, formerly known as Paris Slim, and a loving tribute to his mentors; a passionate effort and a musical statement that is “Blues delivered with conviction, virtuosity and authority”, as asserted by blues scholar and historian Dick Shurman.

For additional information regarding Franck L. Goldwasser please visit www.francklgoldwasser.com. Slymbird records is happy to respond to your inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us.

credits

released February 25, 2021

Franck L. Goldwasser: guitar, vocals, harmonica
Christoffer "Kid" Andersen: bass guitar, keyboard, percussion
June Core: drums
Rome Yamilov: second guitar on track 8
Recorded at Greaseland Studio, San José, CA in June 2019
Engineered by Christoffer "Kid" Andersen

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Franck L. Goldwasser California

Born in Paris, France in 1960, Franck Goldwasser moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1983. Immersing himself in the area's still vibrant blues scene, Franck worked with some of the most prestigious blues names in West Coast blues, including Percy Mayfield, Lowell Fulson and Charlie Musselwhite. Franck has released several solo albums and has appeared on more than 100 albums. ... more

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