TNB Night Owl – Elmore James

If you love rock and roll, you have to love the blues. The blues were a powerful influence on rock music, and rock just wouldn’t be the same without its’ blues pedigree.

There were many great blues musicians: this Night Owl is dedicated to Elmore James, who doesn’t seem to get as much recognition as other blues icons, no doubt for the tragic reason that he died young in 1963. Certainly, we can hear the blues in the early rock of the fifties, but it wasn’t until the sixties when Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, The Allman Brothers Band, Derek and the Dominos, and many other rock luminaries incorporated authentic blues within popular rock. Better-known blues artists lived to see their vast influence on rock, and enjoyed veneration and appreciation from rock virtuosos and fans alike. James wasn’t completely forgotten, however. Most of the tracks in tonight’s playlist were later covered by famous rock ‘n’ rollers.

Born Elmore Brooks on January 27, 1918, James passed away May 24, 1963, at just 45 years old. Known as the “King of the Slide Guitar”, James was a pioneer on the electric guitar. Slide guitar existed pre-war and pre-electrification of musical instruments, of course. Robert Johnson is probably the most famous non-electric slide guitarist.

Music made with a slide on a string is thought to have originated in Africa and probably pre-dates the invention of the guitar. Slide guitar was popularized in the Mississippi Delta region, and the genre is known as Mississippi Delta Blues, or just Delta Blues. A guitar slide is worn on a finger, pressed against the strings, and slid up and down the neck of the guitar to create a continuous tone that fades from one note into the next. Today, they’re made of various materials, including glass, metal, wood, even ceramics. In the early days, a slide was the neck of a glass bottle cut down to fit both the player’s finger and the width of the guitar neck. This type of music was also known as ‘bottleneck’. Here’s a short demonstration of a slide in action:

Mississippi Delta Blues Bottleneck Slide (2:40)
Justin Johnson

Note that tracks below released after James’ death in 1963 were recorded mostly in the early sixties.

One last thing. As you listen to Elmore James, keep in mind that without him and other blues masters like him, we wouldn’t have giants like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix.

1951
Dust My Broom (2:55)