Homans was born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, but has said that he was raised in North Carolina, where he was first exposed to blues music from about the time he was five years old. During childhood, he sang in choirs and glee clubs. Homans later explained that he first played music in 1958, on a set of bongo drums. A year later, he acquired a harmonica. It took almost a decade before he became sufficiently experienced to take on a professional gig at Middlebury College in Vermont. Homans has been performing since the 1970s and has been linked to several notable blues musicians, including John Lee Hooker, Robert Cray, Champion Jack Dupree, Bonnie Raitt, "Country" Joe McDonald, and Henry Vestine of Canned Heat. The first recording project to feature Homans was Merry Airbrakes, an album recorded and released on a small label in 1973 after returning from a tour of duty in Vietnam. This song, which he wrote, has been described as "furiously anti-war." Homans had become, after his return home, involved with Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and the album had songs with lyrics reflecting drug use, spiritual exploration, and involvement with the emotional cost of fighting "enemies." The album, originals of which are now highly collectible, has been re-released. In Vietnam, he contracted an illness that put him in a Cam Ranh Baymilitary hospital. While convalescing, he started playing a Vietnamese guitar, made with balsa wood and rusty metal strings. His guitar pick was a Zippo cigarette lighter. When he was transferred back to the U.S., he was not allowed to bring his Vietnamese guitar along, so he bought a new American guitar shortly after his arrival and continued to develop this new skill. By 1979, he felt adrift in the Boston area and naively decided to move to Oklahoma, buy some land and earn a living as a farmer. He grew many different crops, from cantaloupes to artichokes, but the farm was never a financial success, merely a sideline. Homans later said that watermelons were the one crop on which never lost money. After Vietnam, Homans spent most of his adult life working for a living as a truck driver, just to make ends meet. According to Oklahoma Magazine, Homans was living on a truck farm in July, 1980, in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma when he first adopted the moniker "Watermelon Slim." He never stopped playing music, and hooked up with some professional players in Oregon in 1984. This improved his skills and gave him confidence in his music abilities. Then he went to Europe, intending to establish himself as a soloist. When that attempt failed, he returned to Boston and truck driving. In 1993, he returned to his 'truck patch" in Oklahoma, where he has been based ever since. He also formed his supporting band, "The Workers."
Film work
Watermelon Slim's music is featured in the 2009 environmental documentary Tar Creek, which is about the Tar Creek environmental disaster in Oklahoma. Music from Big Shoes to Fill, Up Close & Personal, plus a live version of "Oklahoma Blues" score this award-winning documentary by writer/director Matt Myers. Homans and Myers met while attending school together at Oklahoma State University.
