Customer Reviews

King of Slide Guitar

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Once you've scooped up James' earlier recordings (the '51-'56 singles on Meteor and Flair), this is where you go for the rest. These two CDs contain (almost) every song Elmore James recorded for Bobby Robinsons Fire, Fury and Enjoy labels down in Louisiana in the early 60s, and it is a veritable gold mine.

Among these fifty tracks are superb, powerful re-recordings of most of James' previous hits, as well as lots and lots of newer material. "Dust My Broom" rocks with unbelievable power, and James does a superb reading of Robert Nighthawk's "Anna Lee" and some fiery instrumentals, particularly "Bobby's Rock" and "Up Jumped Elmore".

Of all the blues box sets I have heard, the material on this album is of the most consistently high quality. There is nary a weak track among the fifty, and even the lesser known songs are great. Just listen to "She's Got To Go", "Talk To Me Baby" (originally recorded for Chess Records), "Early One Morning" and the powerful "Look On Yonder Wall".
If you like Elmore James and his fiery slide guitar attack, larger-than-life voice and rocking sax-and-piano arrangements, you can't go wrong with this incredible set of music. It's better than Muddy Waters' Chess box set, and at least as good as Howlin' Wolf's.

Am I crazy or is Elmore James one of the best blues vocalists? He's so powerful, I couldn't stand it at first. This CD has lots of Elmore's best cuts but no notes on recording dates or fellow musicians. There's some notes on his personal/recording history.

Leads off with "Dust My Broom", sounding great, "Done Somebody Wrong" - again great , then "Sky is Crying", beautiful. "Look on Yonder Wall" is fine,too. Then a very competitive "Standing at the Crossroads". My favorite cut on the CD is next, "Mean Mistreatin' Mama" which somehow makes it very real for me that Elmore was a radio repairman, reworking his own amps. Compare James' version of "It Hurts Me Too" to Clapton's version on "From th Cradle"; Elmore really has the voice of a century worth of living. The last three cuts have poor sound quality.

There may be better Elmore James compilations, this was my introduction. And for that, I'm grateful.

Elmore James is a magician on the guitar and for expressing blues music. Eric Clapton happened to introduce me to the blues genre some ten years ago by his release of unplugged and subsequent From the Cradle. From that point I have wandered through the likes of BB, Albert, and Freddie King, TBONE, Cotton and others. On first listen to this album, James really took me. His playing and vocals simply jam the blues, this is really exciting music and it seems so fresh and new. James must have influenced everyone, because his guitar riffs and playing seem to be present in all the other blues I own. Simply a great set of music, Elmore is an artist that you should certaintly get.

Elmore James/King of the slide guitar: This 2 disk compilation has all the great cuts you'll need to understand and enjoy this great Blues artist. The influence of James' work is obvious from all the groups that have done their own versions of his songs,but his own recordings stand above and beyond those wonderful tributes to him.