Elmore James Hits & Rarities (2-CD)

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catalog number: CDSBR7065
weight in Kg 0.1

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(Sunset Blvd Records) 36 tracks, digisleeve Elmore James is known as the “King of the Slide... more

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Elmore James: Hits & Rarities (2-CD)

(Sunset Blvd Records) 36 tracks, digisleeve

Elmore James is known as the “King of the Slide Guitar”. He was inspired by the local performances of Robert Johnson, whose “Dust My Broom” became James' signature song and laid the foundation for his career as a musician. “Dust My Broom” was first recorded by James in August 1951 and contains the strongest example of his stylistic signature: a swooping, full-octave opening figure on a slide guitar. He has been credited with the practical invention of blues rock, laying down primal riffs with a raw, driving intensity.

Elmore James left a legacy of classic blues songs that influenced a legion of Chicago slide players, and his songs have been covered by the likes of the Allman Brothers Band, Canned Heat, Fleetwood Mac and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. “You can hear his signature riff at least once a night from any slide guitarist,” music historian Tony Glover has written, ”but no one has ever matched the vocal intensity that turned the Delta's lonesome moan into a Chicago scream.”

Article properties: Elmore James: Hits & Rarities (2-CD)

Interpret: Elmore James
Album titlle: Hits & Rarities (2-CD)
Genre Blues
Artikelart CD
Label Sunset Blvd Records
EAN: 0708535706526
weight in Kg 0.1

James, Elmore - Hits & Rarities (2-CD) CD 1
01	The Sky Is Crying	Elmore James
02	Bobby's Rock	Elmore James
03	Held My Baby Last Night	Elmore James
04	Dust My Broom	Elmore James
05	Baby Please Set a Date	Elmore James
06	Rollin' and Tumblin'	Elmore James
07	I'm Worried	Elmore James
08	Done Somebody Wrong	Elmore James
09	Fine Little Mama	Elmore James
10	I Can't Stop Lovin' You	Elmore James
11	Early One Morning	Elmore James
12	I Need You	Elmore James
13	Strange Angel	Elmore James
14	She Done Moved	Elmore James
15	Something Inside Me	Elmore James
16	Stranger Blues	Elmore James
17	Anna Lee	Elmore James
18	Bleeding Heart	Elmore James

James, Elmore - Hits & Rarities (2-CD) CD 2
01	Standing at the Crossroads	Elmore James
02	One Way Out	Elmore James
03	Got to Move	Elmore James
04	So Unkind	Elmore James
05	My Kind of Woman	Elmore James
06	Look On Yonder Wall	Elmore James
07	Shake Your Moneymaker	Elmore James
08	Mean Mistreatin' Mama	Elmore James
09	Sunnyland	Elmore James
10	Go Back Home Again	Elmore James
11	You Know You're Wrong	Elmore James
12	It Hurts Me Too	Elmore James
13	Talk to Me Baby	Elmore James
14	Pickin' the Blues	Elmore James
15	Twelve Year Old Boy	Elmore James
16	Can't Stop Loving My Baby	Elmore James
17	I Believe	Elmore James
18	Make My Dreams Come True	Elmore James

Elmore James It didn't seem to much matter whether Fire Records boss Bobby Robinson... more

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"Elmore James"

Elmore James

It didn't seem to much matter whether Fire Records boss Bobby Robinson booked a studio to record slide guitar master Elmore James in Chicago, New York, or New Orleans. Elmore ripped into his own Shake Your Moneymaker at Cosimo Matassa's self-named studio in the Crescent City during the summer of 1961, the Harlem-based Robinson making the trip down to oversee the session.

After supervising Elmore's '59 comeback hit The Sky Is Crying in Chicago with the guitarist's own Broomdusters in sturdy support (see Disc Five), Robinson had helmed a couple of James dates at Beltone Studios in New York with the cream of the city's blues sessioneers behind him. But Elmore was now living mostly in Jackson, Mississippi (problems with the Chicago musicians union made it all but impossible for him to secure work there), so James met Bobby in the Crescent City to record with his Jackson-based band: Johnny 'Big Moose' Walker rattled the 88s, Sammy Lee Bully stroked the electric bass, and King Mose Taylor was on drums.

The non-union session was held under sweltering conditions that don't seem to have slowed the tough little combo down any; Moneymaker rides a fluid glide that's different from the grinding thrust that his platters traditionally had. This is no Dust My Broom retread, but fresh territory for James, whose vocal is all but unintelligible in spots yet thoroughly compelling from one end to the other. Of course, his savage slide work connects as solidly as ever.

Robinson had searched long and hard to locate Elmore prior to the date that spawned The Sky Is Crying, and the producer remained faithful to him to the end. That sad day arrived unexpectedly on May 24, 1963, when James succumbed to a heart attack at his bassist 'Homesick' James Williamson's house on Chicago's near North Side. He was only 45 and had long suffered from a bad ticker. With help from local deejay Big Bill Hill, Elmore had straightened out his longstanding dispute with the union and was primed to resume performing in the Windy City when he died, as well as planning his first European tour.

The electric blues idiom has seen its share of iconic slide guitarists over the decades. For a great many enthusiasts of the genre, there can be no better example of the crashing power of cold bottleneck or metal tube incisively applied to six amplified strings than the classic lick powering Elmore's Dust My Broom.

Bill Dahl
Chicago, Illinois

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Electric Blues 1939–2005 – The Definitive Collection!
Volume 3: 1960–1969

Elmore James on Wikipedia

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