Customer Reviews

Sufferin Mind

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Eddie "Guitar Slim" Jones is probably the most influential New Orleans blues artists ever. This generous anthology collects 26 tracks from his 1953-56 tenure at Specialty (before leaving for Atco). The album kicks off with his 1953 No. 1 "The Things I Used To Do" and hits all the highlights from the period, including "Story of My Life," "Sufferin' Mind" and "Something To Remember You By." [Note: The 1953 recordings (tracks 1-4) include Ray Charles as pianist and arranger.] If you're going to own only one Guitar Slim album, this is the one to get. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Via Frank Zappa, I was turned onto Guitar Slim. That's the long and the short of it, and within moments, you can see how Slim influenced Zappa's scratchy, angry guitar sound.

It's all here, some of the purest, meanest, dirtiest blues ever recorded, I'm sure. "You Gonna Miss Me", "Bad Luck Blues", "Reap What You Sow", and especially "Story of My Life" hold up to anything you want to compare them to.

If there is a problem with sound quality, I'm not aware of it--but if you can find a more comprehensive anthology complete with alternate takes or even live tracks, it would probably be worth picking up instead of this release.

There are a lot of great cuts on this CD but when I want to GET DOWN, I put on "Story of My Life." This song is blues at its most OVER-THE-TOP, from the Slim's impassioned voice twisting around the opening line to his totally raw guitar solo that sounds like one long moan. THIS IS THE BLUES!! Guitar Slim: you were one of a kind. R.I.P.

This is a collection of the work of Eddie "Guitar Slim" Jones' work for the Specialty label. Held in open-jawed awe by fellow New Orleans musicians who marveled at his spectacular stage act, it's one of the great puzzles of the history of R&B music why his records did not do better commercially. Recording prior to Specialty with Imperial and Bullet, he had just the one charted hit in his career.

But what a hit. The Things That I Used To Do [b/w Well, I Done Got Over It] went to # 1 R&B early in 1954 [with Ray Charles playing piano] and stayed on the charts for 21 weeks, including FOURTEEN at # 1.

So why did he not enjoy more commercial success? Your guess is as good as mine. It's not as if he was with a small label. Both Imperial and Specialty, although not in the class of Columbia, Decca, RCA Victor, Capitol, or Mercury, were nevertheless among the top of the next tier of intermediate labels with numerous other successful artists under their wings like Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis, Little Richard, and Larry Williams - to name just a few. And his last label, Atlantic/Atco, was another strong outfit who knew how to promote their artists.

Just 32 years of age when he died from pneumonia on February 7, 1959, in this collection you will hear a voice made for R&B - hard-edged, at times almost raw, along with guitar playing that at times defies description. In 2007, Guitar Slim was inducted into the Blues Hall Of Fame.

Including the original (and hit) rendition of the blues classic The Things I Used to Do, this disc brings together some of Eddie 'Guitar Slim' Jones' most celebrated recordings. This is not the only Guitar Slim number which has been reworked by numberous blues and rock icons from Buddy Guy, Earl King, Guitar Shorty, Clifton Chenier, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert Collins, Canned Heat, Guitar Shorty and even James Brown. Gatemouth Brown was perhaps the biggest direct influence, but Slim's gospel rooted blues shouting along with guitar pyrotechnics led to his reputation as a staggering live and influential performer. His guitar playing is not as upfront on these recordings as are his vocals, but man could he sing. The disc of his Atco recordings that Atlantic (I believe) issued a few years ago has the guitar upfront and well worth getting.

Guitar Slim's death at the age of 33 really robbed the blues world of a major talent as evidenced here on these 26 recordings for the Specialty label from 1953-1955. His guitar work was ahead of its time with its distorted edge and spiky sound. His impassioned and wailing vocals are comparable only to those of Elmore James in my mind. The vocal he delivers on the final take of "Sufferin' Mind" included on this CD knocks me out every time I hear it. As a general rule I never am able to listen to it just once, I always end up playing the song again. Also interesting is the fact that Ray Charles is featured as pianist and arranger on four of the songs on this collection, and his influence is apparent when you hear the songs. My only complaint with this collection is that I found the label's insistence on including false starts to be really annoying. I fail to see what purpose it serves to have several false starts prior to the actual take of the song. Even for purposes of historical significance I didn't find any of the studio banter between Guitar Slim and the engineers to be particularly interesting. Aside from that though, Guitar Slim is an unsung musician that any fan of the blues should hear, and this collection serves as a good introduction to his music.

This is one of my all time favourite blues albums. Every track is a masterpiece. The fist four are produced by a young Ray Charles, who was then to make millions with records that may had some thing to do with these. Slim screams with passion, laughs and cries the blues like no one before him. He is one of the very first guitarists that dare to put a distorted sound on record. Listen to the story of my life and trouble dont last. Slim had everything. If he had not die, he could had been one of the most succesful blues artist ever. Put this record with the complete recordings of robert, the chess box of muddy, live at the regal of bb. Become a fan.

This is simply one of the best albums ever put together. The only thing bad about it is that Slim died young and there isn't more music he made. By the way, in his supporting band is an up and coming piano player from Florida and the West Coast named Ray Charles. You may have heard of him!

Eddie Guitar Slim Jones was the Master of the Stratacaster one of the most important electric blues stylists ever. Of course, like all great bluesmen, he is first last and always a great great singer. This is good, not history, but just plain excellent, better than good! If this album was cut last night by a white boy from Iowa, it would still be one of the great blues collections, and one of the most fun cds of any type in my library.

There are very few people even the blues who put themselves and their personality into their music the way Slim does. And when I say personality, I mean total personality. A researcher for a tape put out in New Orleans with his music in the 1970s interviewed a man who he assumed was Guitar Slim's tailor back in the 1950s. He asked the man if he had any stories of things Slim had done in New Orleans. The man started telling about the outfits Slim would wear that would stop traffic on Canal St. in downtown New Orleans. He kept going on with stories of cool and wild stuff he had seen Slim do. Then, the researcher asked the man about tailoring clothes. The man told him he wasn't a tailor for Slim or anyone else, but a truck driver. The tailor was his cousin who had passed away. Slim was such a character that any every day truck driver had an hour of stories about him 25 years after he had passed away.

The guitar playing is excellent, bridging the gap between jump blues and electric blues that was only emerging when these tracks were cut. Everything, even slow blues swings and rocks. Beside the hard core you aint my woman blues like the masterpiece "The Things We Used to Do," there is plenty of fun here, like "My name is Guitar Slim." I too love "The sTory of my life." What a story it must have been; someone needs to write a book or a movie about Slim.

This is a CD that I find hard to play because once I put it on the machine all I want to do is repeat, repeat, repeat. I am now worried because I have a lot of other things to do when I get home after writing this, and all I may do is play this CD.

No one with ears can go without his records.

Slim was using a raw, nasty tone on the fiddle before anyone else. He must have sounded like an alien at the time. The music has aged very very well.

THESE ARE THE BEST KNOWN RECORDINGS OF GUITAR SLIM, BUT LISTENING TO HIS RECORDINGS MADE IN A STUDIO DOESN'T DO HIM JUSTICE. SLIM WAS AT HIS BEST IN A LIVE VENUE. HE USED TO ATTACH AN EXTREMLY LONG CORD TO HIS ELECTRIC GUITAR AND GET DOWN FROM THE STAGE AND GO INTO THE AUDIENCE WHILE HE WAS PLAYING. BUT HIS GUITAR PLAYING IS STILL GREAT.