Moose Jaw based bluesman Whiteboy Slim aka Maurice Richard Libby put his own stamp on the blues and 
revisited his old punk days, Aug. 17 at Average Joes for an attentive audience of about 75 people. I arrived mid-way through his second of three long sets of of gritty blues and extended jams between him and bassist Dustin Boyer, who grooved, hidden behind a mop of long blonde hair.
They covered everything from classic blues to brand new Whiteboy Slim material to appear on a new upcoming double CD. He also played a few blues influenced and a couple of straight ahead reggae songs from his old punk band the Dirty Movies.
He had a gritty, raw Hound Dog Taylor guitar sound and a gruff and gravelly Howlin’ Wolf type of voice.
He belted out a gruff version of blues classic “Route 66” as well as an excellent version of “Walking Blues,” which many a blues picker has covered.
For something different, he followed that up with “Blood On the Streets,” one of the reggae songs from his old punk band. He prefaced it with a story about how “Dirty Movies” always drew lots of guys in trench-coats to their shows.
He played a lot of hot guitar playing seamlessly switching between slide, wah wah pedal and plain old fingers. But his harp playing was almost as impressive as he blew solos that would give Carlos Del Junco a run for his money and which would have made Little Walter proud.
He showed keen lyrical sensibility on the entertaining “Krispy Kreame Girl” about a couple of girls from Nashville he got to chatting with online about donuts along with a couple of songs from his Whiteboy Slim, aka Whiteboy Slim from a few years back. He ended his set with “Hey, Hold On Stop,” form that CD.
His Third set began with more classic blues including BB King’s “ I Woke Up This Morning,” as well as some of his own older songs. He put his own stamp on Howlin’ Wolf’s “ Who’s Been Talking (My Baby Caught The Train)” as well as switched around John Lee Hooker’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch One Beer,” by reversing the lyrics to “One Scotch, One Beer, One Bourbon and adding a touch of reggae to it.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
