ELMORE JAMES- HITS & RARITIES

RED COLORED VINYL

180 GRAM 

This collection is split into two contrasting sections. Side one contains the hatstand best-known James material that Robinson issued on his Fire and Enjoy labels. Bobby produced Elmore in three different locales, so a variety of backing combos were used. James recut is immortal "Dust My Broom" at the same Windy City session that spawned "The Sky Is Crying" with his Broomdusters (featuring pianist Johnny Jonesand saxist J.T. Brown),but the romping "Shake Your Moneymaker" and "Look On Wander Wall" were done in New Orleans. Bobby moved the action to his familiar New York stomping grounds wax Elmore's "Stranger Blues," a re-made "It Hurts Me Too," and the incomparably tortured "Something Inside Me."No less deeply moving are the rarities populating side two. "One Way Out," "My Kind Of Woman," and "I Gotta Go Now" strike just a lethally as Elmore's signature themes, his perpetually intense vocals and blistering bottleneck attack never easing up for an instant. Od all labels that Elmore recorded for prior to his May 24, 1963 death from a heart attack at his cousin Homesick Jamrs' Windy City home, it's the guitarist's Fire/Enjoy catalog--his last stop--that cuts the deepest and most eloquently defines his mammoth influence. This is a seminal electric blues slide guitar emanating direct from one of it's primary sources. 

WRITTEN BY: BILL DAHL

Track Listing:

Hit Side

The Sky Is Crying

Shake Your Money Maker

It Hurts Me Too

Something Inside Me

Look On Yonder Wall

Stranger Blues

Dust My Broom

Rarities Side

My Kind Of Woman

Strange Angel

One Way Out

Person To Person

So Unkind

Mean Mistreatin' Mama

I Gotta Go Now