A young Brian Jones called himself Elmo Lewis. Why? Brain was a guitar player in The Rolling Stones. He wanted to be Elmore James..Elmore was known as King of the Slide Guitar Players... Elmore grew up in the deep south.By his early teens he was playing music professionally...Tampa Red and Robert Johnson influenced many blues guitar players..Elmore was one of them. Elmore was a veteran of WWII...upon his return from the war,Elmore began working in an electrical shop..while there,he developed a guitar pick up..this pickup became his signature sound..Elmore and his band were LOUD!! He played guitar for Sonny Boy Williamson II..He fronted his own band..he learned he had a serious heart condition... In the early 50s Elmore James began to record..Elmore only recorded for about 10 years...his songs and style are blues staples...The Sky is Crying, Shake your money maker, Done Somebody Wrong,I cant hold out and Dust my Broom are just a few of the songs Elmore James left behind... There are a few guitar players that are so influential that all you have to say to other guitar players is their name and everyone knows how the song goes..an example would be, Play a Chuck Berry double stop...every experienced guitar player at a jam session knows what to do...at a blues jam session if someone says play an Elmore James type Lick..everyone knows that means the lick to Dust my Broom... Stevie Ray Vaughn,The Allman Brothers, The Stones, Taj Mahal, Paul Butterfield,John Hammond and The Grateful Dead introduced me to Elmore James...as a beginner,I kept hearing these great blues songs...Elmore James name kept coming up...eventually, I found a recording by Elmore James!! I knew several of his songs before I heard the original versions...blues records were hard to find in the late 60s and early 70s..well,they were hard to find in La Grande, Oregon... Elmore James died in 1963..at age 45...that is young for a bluesman... I am going to go get my guitar and slide..I am going to play Dust my Broom...yep, I am going to play it loud..just like Elmore James liked it...if you stop by the store today, please call me Elmo...
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 16:24:15 +0000
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