Elmore James Definitive Hits & Rarities Coming Soon

01-15-2025

(HW) Without Elmore James, the slashing sound of electric blues slide guitar would have been very different indeed. The Richland, Mississippi native played an immeasurable role in defining the modern concept of applying a bottleneck across the strings of a guitar, and his tortured vocal cries and wails were every bit the thoroughly thrilling equal of his sizzling fretwork. Sunset Blvd.'s Hits & Rarities offers a definitive look at the legendary James' later career, offering 36 classic songs from his last great blast of recording for Harlem producer Bobby Robinson in Chicago, New York and New Orleans. It's available in two-CD and two-LP configurations.

Spanning 1959-1963, the set offers a magnificent overview of Elmore's releases on the Fire and Enjoy labels. Its searing contents offer superlative testimony as to why James is considered one of the greatest slide guitarists in blues history. The collection's doom-laden opening track "The Sky Is Crying," cut with Elmore and his trusty Windy City band, the Broomdusters, revived his career when it became a major R&B hit in 1960. This deeply moving version of his immortal "It Hurts Me Too" dented those same charts posthumously for the slide wizard in 1965.

James revisited several of his other classics for Robinson as well; "Standing At The Crossroads," "I Believe," "Talk To Me Baby," and "Twelve Year Old Boy" hit at least as hard as his previous waxings of the songs. Of the fresh originals, "One Way Out" (cut shortly before Sonny Boy Williamson #2 waxed his better-known version) and a Crescent City-cut "Shake Your Moneymaker" are blistering houserockers, while the stunning "Something Inside Me" reigns as one of the most agonizing downbeat blues in the proud history of the idiom. "Bobby's Rock" and "Pickin' The Blues" compellingly spotlight Elmore's singular prowess on his axe.

James gained plenty of experience as a working bluesman long before he ever set foot in a recording studio. He rambled with revered Delta bluesman Robert Johnson and gigged with the second Sonny Boy (Rice Miller) prior to making his belated debut on shellac with his first version of "Dust My Broom" for Lillian McMurry's Jackson, Miss.-based Trumpet label. It pierced the R&B Top Ten during the spring of 1952.

Instead of encoring for Trumpet, James hightailed it up to Chicago, where he formed the Broomdusters and recorded "I Believe," his next smash on Modern Records' Meteor imprint in 1953. Elmore made more splendid blues sides for Modern's Flair logo as well as the parent label, but scored no more hits there or on Mel London's Chicago-based Chief label in '57 (Mel licensed them to Vee-Jay Records for national consumption). It took the recordings on this compilation to restore James to national prominence, although he didn't really have much time to benefit from their release.

Elmore died unexpectedly of a heart attack in May of 1963 at age 45, providing an unfortunate sudden end to the slide guitar king's amazing career. He left these seminal recordings behind to influence and educate future generations of blues and blues-rock guitar slingers that would follow in his outsized footsteps. Whether on CD or LP, the 36 titles on Elmore James' Hits & Rarities will always rank with the greatest postwar blues recordings of all.