Laney Jones and Langhorne Slim

Born Sean Scolnick in the city he would later take his stage name from, Langhorne Slim is the latest in a long line of artists that has fallen out of vogue in recent years. He is the kind of artist completely shaped by his time spent on the road. One can hear his music and feel that he would be riding the rails with Woody Guthrie if he came to prominence at the same time as the folk legend. He would be permanently stuffed in the back of a splitter van with Black Flag if he came to prominence in the 80’s. There might not be many like him around now but he’s definitely keeping that spirit alive, and we should be very grateful for that.

Slim moved to Brooklyn, New York when he was 18 years of age. However, as was his nature, he began moving around almost immediately, releasing an acclaimed album of demos and cutting his teeth live as the opening act for the Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players. By 2004 he’d been signed to Narnack Records and recorded his first majorly released E.P “Electric Love Letter”. A full length album came next year in the form of “When The Sun Goes Down”, and by that point he’d progressed to touring with a full band and opening for the likes of Lucero and Murder By Death. 2006 saw his biggest move to date when he signed with the major label imprint V2 for one album and one E.P.

Ever since then, Slim has proved himself to be one of the most acclaimed artists of the unbelievably fertile American folk scene. No lesser name than Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed his 2012 effort “The Way We Move” as “damn near perfect” and he’s appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O’Brien. More and more people are falling to Slim’s old school story-telling charms thanks to opening slots with The Avett Brothers, The Violent Femmes and The Lumineers. So, in the age of the sanitized, family-friendly singer songwriter, we need Langhorne Slim to be a name more than ever. By the looks of it, that’s exactly what he’ll be. Highly recommended.