Despite the fact that his career was curtailed in 1963 by a fatal heart attack when he was only 45, Elmore James was an extremely influential figure in the development of blues guitar, both by virtue of his highly distinctive sound, which he consciously developed by building his own combination of a modified hollow-bodied guitar and custom pick-ups, but also his hit with a version of Robert Johnson’s “Dust My Broom”, which has become one of the most ubiquitously performed and recorded tunes in blues.This rocking 16 track LP majors in on his finest releases throughout his short career from the iconic “Dust My Broom” in 1951 through to “Stanger Blues”, released just a few months before his death.A host of high profile guitarists have readily cited Elmore James as an influence and performed his material over the years, despite his relatively modest body of work, including Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and George Thorogood.This collection is an ideal celebration of the ‘King Of The Slide Guitar’.
