Friday Night Electric Blues Celebrating the 2021 Birthday of The Pioneer of Slide Guitar, Elmore James

by Robert Wilkinson

Tonight we hear blues made by a legend! Elmore James’ slide guitar work influenced literally every single blues guitar player since he hit the stage.

Elmore James (January 27, 1918 – May 24, 1963) was truly the “King of the Slide Guitar.” Originally from Mississippi, he began playing guitar at 12, and was part of the generation influenced by blues pioneers Robert Johnson and Tampa Red, including the musicians who backed them like Little Johnny Jones on piano and Odie Payne on drums. It is said that Jones co-wrote “Dust My Broom,” James’ breakthrough 1952 hit which featured his stinging slide guitar. It immediately put him in the big leagues, and from there he took off for the stars, writing and/or performing standards like “The Sky is Crying,” “Shake Your Moneymaker,” “It Hurts Me Too,” “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” and a whole bunch more. He wound up in Chicago, and was at the peak of his career when he died of a heart attack in 1963. For your enjoyment, the “king of the slide guitar,” Mister Elmore James!

We begin with his biggest, the original spare production from 1951 of “Dust My Broom.” He went a little more electric in this 1955 version of “Dust My Broom,” and went “full Chicago electric,” on this remastered version in 1965! “Dust My Broom.”

He followed with these!

“I Believe” (1953)

“Sho’ Nuff I Do” (1954)

“Standing at the Crossroads” (1954) Here's the 1965 version of “Standing at the Crossroads”

In 1954 he played lead on Big Joe Turner’s top 10 hit “TV Mama”

One from 1955! “Dust My Blues.” From the same year, “Goodbye Baby.”

Here’s one Tampa Red wrote, interpreted by many of the greats! From 1957, “It Hurts Me Too” (with “Elmore’s Contribute to Jazz,”) and here's the 1965 version of “It Hurts Me Too,”

In 1959, he went to a new record company and gave us these tunes, some of which became blues standards!

From 1959, "Bobby's Rock" and the B side "Make My Dreams Come True" Here’s the original 1954 version, also a B side. "Make My Dreams Come True"

Here's his original 1960 version of “The Sky Is Crying” (I have a bunch of other versions of this tune by the greatest toward the end of the tribute!)

That year he also wrote “I Can’t Hold Out,” and here's Clapton’s 1974 version of “I Can’t Hold Out”

Here's Elmore's 1960 version of the standard “Rollin and Tumblin’” and the B side, "I'm Worried"

Here's his 1961 version of the standards “Shake Your Moneymaker” and his 1965 remastered “Every Day I Have the Blues”

Elmore wrote two songs in 1961, "Done Somebody Wrong" and "One Way Out" which were covered by the Allman Brothers Band. Here’s their version of "One Way Out" and "Done Somebody Wrong"

Elmore wrote “The Sky is Crying,” and here are a few versions done by the greatest! First, we have Albert King’s version of “The Sky is Crying” which we'll follow with George Thorogood's version of “The Sky is Crying.”

Here Eric Clapton does two different versions from radically different eras of his career. First, from his solo days, “The Sky is Crying” and then we go into the wayback machine to July 1964 when he was still the lead player for the Yardbirds! Here's a live version of “The Sky is Crying”

In a final nod to this tune, here’s a great live performance by Stevie Ray Vaughan, BB King, Albert King, Paul Butterfield, and others having fun with “The Sky is Crying”

Robert Johnson wrote ”Dust My Broom,” which has been done countless times by countless greats! Elmore James did the definitive version, influencing the slide work of everyone else who followed. Here are three videos done by the best of the best. We begin with a very live performance in Paris by Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac in December 1968 cranking out ”Dust My Broom.” We now go to Letterman, where Johnny Winter gives us a blistering version of ”Dust My Broom” and from 1980, live on Rockpalast, a great video of ZZ Top’s first European tour cranking out ”Dust My Broom”

Elmore also wrote this one which was covered by one of the greatest blues guitar players in history, “Bleeding Heart” I found three versions by Jimi, all live. This one has just appeared! It’s a video of Jimi live, probably in 1969 or early 1970, performing “Bleeding Heart.” This audio version is supposedly from 1965, and it’s different than the Royal Albert Hall 1969 version that follows. “Bleeding Heart” and “Bleeding Heart.”

We'll close with this tribute song by Roy Buchanan, from his 1974 Second Album, where he recorded "Tribute to Elmore James"

Last year’s 55 minute clip of his 1952-1955 period titled Elmore James – The American Blues Guitar is gone, as is Elmore James - 40 Exciting Legendary Blues Tracks: Tribute To Elmore James, "King of Slide Guitar."

So instead, for this year’s encores, we have the 69 minute album Elmore James – Blues Masters Work, and this link to 49 clips titled Elmore James – King of the Slide Guitar (which is NOT the same album as the “40 Exciting Legendary Blues Tracks” clip listed above.)

© Copyright 2022 Robert Wilkinson

from Aquarius Papers - Global Astrology https://ift.tt/3IGVosc
via IFTTT