I recently wanted to dig into some new stuff for influences, being mostly under the Lindley spell for quite awhile, then Freddie Roulette for a time. I had heard that Bob Dunn, an early non-pedal pioneer, was influenced by trombones so I went looking for jazz trombone music and, predictably, found nothing. I did, however, decide before heading home to peruse the blues and see what was shaking that might get the old creative juices flowing. I found an Elmore James CD and decided that if nothing else it would help broaden my guitar palette a bit (being ignorant of his style or influence) and possibly give me some more interesting approaches to fills.
Elmore James, more than any other blues player I can think of, created modern blues, I am convinced of it. Especially where it pertains to slide guitar.
Every run he played, he created; those same runs, note for note, are used by innumerable slide and guitar players and have been since he originally played them. His vocal style is flatly unbelievable in a day when multitracking was a distant dream. I believe Elmore created blues slide guitar as we understand it, and it has been a revelation. Check him out, if you haven't already.
I wouldn't go quite that far, but he was a huge influence. As you say, his "Dust My Broom" riffs have been used over and over. A few years back I went into a steakhouse and heard on the Muzak some forgettable whiny nasal Nashville country singer singing forgettable whiny nasal Nashville country stuff, backed by an electric guitarist playing Elmore's "Dust My Broom" note for note.
:lol:
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
I only have one CD of his and the first half of it is really good and really bluesy but then its starts getting into a lot of hawaiian type music. It kind of threw me off for a minute.
our slide music came from Hawaiian and American blues meeting up in the 20" and 30's.
the genre of slide is huge. listen to the western swing dudes from the 40's and 50's. they had great lap steel parts. there was a jazz influence for sure.
first wave country had six and eight string lap steel as well as 10 string pedal steel.
in the 70's rock met some of the steelers and that bred a new generation of sliders.
and now it seems that slide is coming back big time.
I hear it everywhere. and it continues to evolve.
one person could never come up with the penultimate slide technique book.
Yip,
I was listening to Elmore recently and I rate him very highly , certainly above his contemporaries in the electric world anyway. I think that part of the problem in recognition was that he was far bigger than that 12th fret riff...but that is what he gets recognised for rather than being a superb Delta vocalist, band leader and writer.
I also think he was pushing the limits of the format, for example check the superb "Anna Lee" ...I mean the trumpet is very far out there indeed, the sax is durty and it is all so far back on the beat it's meeting itself on the rebound. I would love to know about that session..it really has a 2.33 am feel to it, I think Elmore said "follow me down boys" and they let the tape roll. :idea:
adios,
Lovat
..play it..I just hit the damn thing...
As for Western swing, it's nearly indistinguishable to my ears from gypsy swing. Got to see the big white hats, boots and string neckties to know the difference.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
As for Western swing, it's nearly indistinguishable to my ears from gypsy swing. Got to see the big white hats, boots and string neckties to know the difference.
Guess it's hard to argue with that......but I'll try. :wink:
Bob Wills & Tommy Duncan never sounded much like Gypsies to me....but then again, if I heard a Gypsy band actually do "Rose of San Antone" or "Faded Love", perhaps I might be more objective... :shock: :lol:
"A child of five could understand this...send someone to fetch a child of five !"--Groucho Marx
Yeah, I know, but stylistically they sound remarkably like what Django Rinehardt and The Hot Band were playing. To my ears.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Just jokin' around, as you can tell....seriously, I think the old Western Swingers could only DREAM of the mastery of an instrument that Django Rheinhart possessed.....and two of his fretting fingers were locked into a claw shape because of a near-fatal fire he was in.
Did you ever listed to the Reinhardt tracks ( and others) at
http://www.redhotjazz.com ?
Outstanding old stuff.
You need to load the free RealPlayer to play the tracks.
"A child of five could understand this...send someone to fetch a child of five !"--Groucho Marx
Django was a freak of nature. Awesome!
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
