It isn't enough just to play well, it's primary, but stage presence, charisma and attitude count. You can learn all the riffs, play al the chops -- but you still have to turn the audience's head, capture their imagination. It's what sets them to listening closer -- to feeling -- feeling what you're playing. What you project sets the hook -- captures the listener's soul -- so they can see and hear yours. You have to have the Blues heart and soul.

Rave On recording artist Slam Allen does! With blistering guitar, riffs reminiscent of B.B. King, an influence and inspiration, Slam's fiery playing has hints of Wilson Pickett, Freddie King, and Albert King too. His full-voiced vocals are silky smooth. Seizing the lyric, he effortlessly wraps timbre and tonality around emotional intent, his intensity and commitment drawing the listener in, capturing his consciousness.

Slam has the Blues in his blood, heart and soul; it's his heritage. Well schooled, he comes from a musical family. Perhaps a portent, his dad, Harrison Allen, a bass player and vocalist, was out playing a Blues gig the night he was born. A real Blues family, both his uncles Cecil and Buddy Allen play, Cecil guitar and Buddy alto and tenor sax.

Slam took to the stage early. A precocious debut, he's been performing since the age of 5. It's no surprise that Slam has a stage presence that radiates energy and confidence. Smooth, flowing, and fluent, his guitar lines are clean and precise. He is right at home on stage -- it becomes his playground -- one he is familiar enough with to chance improvisation.

Like so many of the best Bluesmen, Blues came into his life at an early age. When he first heard the Blues, Slam says he didn't like it. His dad, who had been a DJ in the south, was always playing Blues, guys like Bobby Blue Bland and B.B. King. Slam was into jazz early on and wanted to be fluent on guitar like George Benson. By the time he was 13 he was already playing in his father's band.

"I was always playing the Blues," Slam said, "but didn't realize it."

Slam was raised and grew up in Monticello, NY, 25 miles west of High Point, NJ. At 30-years old, having learned his craft with help from his musician father -- and having paid some dues -- he knows where he's at and where he wants to go. He wants to carry on the legacy of the Blues. And in doing so, drawing from his influences, such as B.B. King, he wants to create his own legacy.

:That's my mission, to reach as many people as possible," he says. "God gave me a gift and he said share it."

"If you want to keep the Blues alive for future generations,: he told Larry Johnson in a conversation at an SBS jam at the Feedbag Saloon in Bloomfield, "you have to bring it young people in the schools." And that's what he does in his spare time.

Addressing his song writing, Slam said he writes from his life experiences, "things that I've experienced, things that I feel. Everything I write is coming from the heart, comin' from the soul." You have to "be for real," he said.

A Bluesman ready for center stage, the Manhattan Blues Alliance has taken notice of this rising star and voted Slam Allen the Best New Soul/Blues Artist for 1995. A Blues evolution, look for the Slam Allen Band's debut release on Rave On this summer.

Art Would
(Larry Johnson contributed to this article.)
Skyland Blues Society Newsletter
Summer 1996