One of the most immediately identifiable guitar riffs in the blues is the “Dust My Broom” run played by Elmore James and copied countless times by other slide guitarists over the years. Elmore didn’t create the riff or the song, but he played it with such intensity and perfection that his renditions became the standards. The title “King of the Slide Guitar” was bestowed upon him when a headstone was finally placed on his grave in 1992, 29 years after his death. James excelled both in slide guitar boogies and wrenching slow blues, with the echoing slide wailing as mournfully as his keening voice (in its own way as unmistakable as his guitar sound).
Elmore James was born January 27, 1918, in Richland, Mississippi. He reportedly admired Robert Johnson, Kokomo Arnold, and Robert Nighthawk, and by one account, he not only knew Johnson (who recorded “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom” in 1936) but played against him in a guitar battle (according to a witness who told the story to the manager of Elmore’s estate, Pat LeBlanc). But it was to be another famous Delta bluesman — harmonica wizard Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller) — who would become James’ most notable partner during the 1940s and early ’50s, working the juke joint circuit and performing on live radio broadcasts, including “King Biscuit Time” in Helena, Arkansas, and other programs. Williamson was the first musician many listeners in the region ever heard use an amplifier, and James amplified his guitar as well, applying a knowledge of electronics he acquired while working in a radio repair shop in Canton. James appeared as a sideman on several of Sonny Boy’s records for the Trumpet label in 1951 and made his own debut (as “Elmo James”) when he cut one historic hit — “Dust My Broom” – on the same day he was accompanying Sonny Boy on eight tunes. Elmore subsequently recorded at various locations for the Bihari family’s Flair, Meteor, and Modern labels. “I Believe,” a powerful reworking of “Dust My Broom” on Meteor, outdid the original on the R&B charts, and though Elmore continued to record without scoring another big hit during his lifetime except for “The Sky Is Crying,” which charted in 1960, he still came up with many a masterpiece, songs that have become far more well known today than they were when he was scuffling, in poor health, trying to make a living moving between Mississippi, Chicago, Atlanta, and other bases. Among the records which have since come to be regarded as classics were “Look On Yonder Wall,” “Shake Your Moneymaker,” “Anna Lee,” “Done Somebody Wrong,” “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” “The Sun Is Shining,” “Hawaiian Boogie,” ”Hand In Hand,” “I Held My Baby Last Night,” “Standing at the Crossroads,” “The Twelve Year Old Boy,” “Cry For Me,” and an uptempo rocker that was only issued years after his death – “Madison Blues,” which has been performed by many modern-day blues and rock bands (perhaps most famously by the original version of Fleetwood Mac, whose Jeremy Spencer specialized in Elmore imitations). “It Hurts Me Too,” from Elmore’s final New York session, would become his last single on the charts – but not until 1965, two years after his death. He had just returned to Chicago from Jackson to do a show for blues disc jockey Big Bill Hill when he suffered a fatal heart attack on May 24, 1963.
Jim O’Neal
www.bluesoterica.com