Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
****1/2. A fine Elmore compilation, but not quite the best, March 9, 2003
This Blues Masters release from Rhino Records is probably the second best available Elmore James compilation - at least if you want to stick to the single disc overviews.
It includes sixteen of James' best songs, including the fiery blues n' boogie of "Dust My Broom" and "Shake Your Moneymaker", and the smouldering slow blues "The Sky Is Crying" and "It Hurts Me Too". A few of these selections may be debatable...I would have preferred "Standing At The Crossroads" and the funky "No Love In My Heart" to a couple of the songs on this album, but that's a minor complaint.
All of the songs included here are really good, and most of them are great. Elmore James and his band, the Broomdusters, played an incredibly tough, hard-rocking brand of blues, dominated by his fierce slide playing and huge voice, and spiced up by the addition of saxist J.T. Brown, pianist Little Johnny Johnson, and Elmore's cousin "Homesick" James Williamson on second guitar.
The reason I say that this is only the second best available single-disc Elmore collection is that Rhino's other Elmore James compilation, "The Sky Is Crying: The History of Elmore James", features 21 supremely well-chosen songs from every one of James' record labels, and thus gets the nod over this one.
There's nothing bad about this CD, the music is great and so are the liner notes. The Rhino disc is just that little bit better.
|
|
|
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Retrospective., June 21, 2004
I was a little kid when Elmore James cut most of these tunes and I heard them way back then from a variety of friends and family that picked up the 45 rpm singles. After a while, I moved on and only occasionally was reminded of what a great catalog of rockin' blues Elmore compiled. Then, in the late 60's, I kept hearing more and more bands covering Elmore's tunes. Jimi Hendrix on Bleeding Heart, for example. Then in the 70's the Allman Brothers on Done Somebody Wrong. A few years later, it was George Thorogood on It Hurts Me Too, then Stevie Ray on The Sky Is Crying. This is plenty of proof of just how enduring Elmore's influence is. Each time I heard a cover, it took me back to those old records. Now Rhino has this compilation with most but not all of my favorites and in pretty decent sound - excellent considering the vintage of these recordings. Great stuff.
|
|
|
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Founding Fathers of Rock & Roll & Boogie Music, August 10, 2001
This album is all the classic Elmore James cuts;starting with the ORIGINAL version of "Dust My Broom" with Sonny Boy Williamson on Harmonica. If you really want to hear one of the founding fathers of Rock & Roll & Boogie Music;you got to get this CD!!!
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
Interact With Your Music: Discover, listen to, and buy new music, all from the pages of SPIN's digital edition, free to Amazon customers.
~ Elmore James
~ John Lee Hooker
~ T-Bone Walker
~ Elmore James
~ Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller)
by Elmore James 
