James, Elmore - The Complete Fire & Enjoy Sessions, Part 2 CD (Mega Blowout Sale)
SKU
11-COL-CD-5185
“No two ways about it, the most influential slide guitarist of the postwar period was Elmore James. Although his early demise from heart failure kept him from enjoying the fruits of the '60s blues revival as his contemporaries Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf did, James left a wide influential trail behind him -- in approach, attitude, and tone. As a guitarist, he wrote the book, his slide style influencing the likes of Hound Dog Taylor, Joe Carter, his cousin Homesick James, and J.B. Hutto, while his seldom-heard single-string work had an equally profound effect on B.B. King and Chuck Berry. His signature lick -- an electric updating of Robert Johnson's "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and one that Elmore recorded in infinite variations from day one to his last session -- became a part of the essential blues fabric of guitar licks. Others may have had more technique, but Elmore had the sound and all the feeling.
A radio repairman by trade, Elmore reworked his guitar amplifiers in his spare time, getting them to produce raw, distorted sounds that wouldn't resurface until the advent of heavy rock amplification in the late '60s. This amp-on-11-approach was hot-wired to one of the strongest emotional approaches to the blues ever recorded. Elmore James always gave it everything he had. This commitment of spirit is something that shows up time and again when listening to multiple takes from his session masters. The sheer repetitiveness of the recording process would dim almost anyone's creative fires, but James always seemed to give it 100-percent every time the red light went on.”
- LabelCollectables
- UPC090431518526