BIO

Henry Harris (AKA South Side Slim) was born in 1957 in Louisiana. He was raised in Oakland California and moved to Los Angeles in the early eighties. He has been playing blues in Los Angeles for the past 10 years. Slim has played with Roy Gaines, Smokey Wilson, Deacon Jones, Ray Bailey, Mickey Champion, Bill Clark, Hollis Gilmore and "Oklahoma" Ollie and the Blues Stand Band. He also played with Pinetop Perkins and Bob Margolin. Slim lead the house band at Gainesville, Roy Gaines' former nightclub. He has been a regular performer at Babe and Ricky's, The Pure Pleasure Lounge, the Pioneer Club, the New Safari Club and Smokey Wilson's (former) Pioneer Club. He has also been a regular at the well known LA clubs Harvelle's and the Cafe Boogaloo and has appeared at John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room in San Francisco as well as at the Open Sky Blues Festival in Big Bear California.

Slim completed a Summer 2002 cross-country tour, which included appearances at the North Atlantic Blues Festival and the Pocono Blues Festival. These are two of the top blues festivals in the country. Slim put on high energy performances at these festivals and had the crowds on their feet screaming for more. On the tour, Slim played at many of the hottest blues clubs in Colorado, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. Slim played at Buddy Guy's Legends and Otis Rush was in the audience. Rush stayed all night and offered encouragement. He also took photos with Slim and signed Slim's Strat.

Slim has been on South Side Records and recorded three CDs for the label. His releases, "Five Steps," "More Blues From The South Side" and "Raising Hell" all received outstanding reviews from the mainstream blues publications. Both Living Blues and Blues Access had feature stories on Slim and Slim's releases got an excellent review in the blues edition of the Music Hound series. It should be noted that Slim also produced More Blues From The South Side which featured Smokey Wilson singing and playing on four tracks. Raising Hell was produced by the legendary producer Scott Mathews who also played drums on that release. Slim also co-produced the South Side Records release "Introducing the Divine Ms Mary ­ Mary Dukes and the 32-20 band," and he contributed guitar work to four songs. All of Slim's releases have done well on radio and several have made the Living Blues radio chart.

Slim plays classic Chicago blues, Hendrix-influenced rock/blues with a little bit of soul and R&B thrown in. He knows how to entertain an audience and will do whatever is required to liven up a show.

Slim hangin' out with Otis Rush
Towards the beginning of Slim's summer 2002 tour he had a gig at Buddy Guy's Legends club in Chicago. Imagine Slim's surprise to find that Otis Rush was there that night, playing pool with his wife. Mr. Rush is one of Slim's biggest heroes and he ended up staying for Slim's entire show. At one point Slim introduced himself to Mr. Rush and the two of them took some photos together. If that wasn't enough, Mr. Rush autographed Slim's vintage Strat.