Happy birthday Elmore James. There are a few guitar players who are identifiable immediately..Chuck Berry for instance..Luther Perkins is another..Luther played on all the early Johnny Cash recording..as soon as you hear the boom,chink guitar, you know Johnnys voice will be booming out of the speakers very soon. If you play blues ...if you play an electric guitar..if you play slide guitar..you will play like Elmore James...you cant help it..Elmore laid down the law..his guitar licks are just the right ones to play.. Like Chuck Berry is to rock and roll guitar,Elmore James is to electric slide guitar...no matter how inventive you are as slide guitarist,eventually you will play like Elmore James..it is just right. Specifically,Dust my broom....I will post this great song...you will recognize the signature guitar riff...changety changety changety cahngety chang chang... Elmore James did not invent his signature guitar lick...it is the same riff Robert Johnson used on his recording of Dust my Broom. What Elmore brought to the party was electric guitar. By all accounts, Elmore was loud! Elmore James was born in Mississippi. After WWII, Elmore gravitated North and landed in Chicago. Elmore played the same clubs and as Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf and all the Chicago blues legends of the era. Elmore and his band The Broomdusters were one of thedont miss bands of the golden age of Chicago blues. Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix were disciples of Elmore James..In Fact, Jones called himself Elmo James and Jimi called himself Jimmy James....naming themselves after Elmore....this was before either one was famous... Elmore died in 1963 after his third heart attack.. he was set to tour England as part of the American Folk Blues tour..most of the film footage of the blues legends of this era are from these tours..Unfortunately,Elmore did not make it... Next time you hear a blues slide guitar solo and you hear changety,changety, changety,changety, chang, chang...you will know Elmore James is in the house!
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 14:57:24 +0000
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