Elmore James

Elmore James (a former radio repairman) spent a good deal of time re-wiring his amplifiers, giving him a raw, distorted, and urgent sound on electric guitar that, coupled with his killer slide style, made him essentially the Godfather of modern electric guitar. This rather random but generous 27-song collection leads off with James' signature tune, a reworking of Robert Johnson's "Dust My Broom." The roaring slide riff from "Dust" is repeated many times on this disc, since labels constantly demanded it, and James delivered it under a range of different titles, and amazingly, no one ever seems to get tired of it. Truthfully, James never recorded a lame track (even if dozens of them were variations on "Dust My Broom"), always pouring all his energy into the performance, so it really doesn't matter which collection of his you pick up. This one features only a handful of tracks that top the three-minute mark (and then only by a couple of seconds), so it manages to feel both fast-paced and varied as a sequence, and there's plenty of James' impassioned singing and that absolutely stunning guitar tone. ~ Steve Leggett, All Music Guide