The liner notes from Elmore James Jr.'s latest CD also tell a pretty good story about the artist's history. (Written by noted blues journalist & author, David Whiteis.)
It's pretty difficult to get diehard blues aficionados to agree about anything, but few dispute the genius of Elmore James. Born in Richland, Mississippi in 1918, he was the rootsy yet forward-looking guitar innovator who updated and intensified Robert Johnson's trailblazing slide style and made Dust My Broom (which some have claimed that he originated) into a modern blues classic; he was the cagey stylist who converted Tampa Red's It Hurts Me Too from a lugubrious ballad into a wracked testimonial of anguished devotion; he was also the ribald Lothario whose fierce slide ululations sounded like the lust-choked wails of Eros himself as he pleaded, cajoled, and rasped Shake Your Moneymaker to a hot-bodied lady, and the impish trickster whose buoyant fretboard zips and keening tenor vocals brought toughness and ironic wit to such erstwhile laments as Done Somebody Wrong and Sunnyland Train. And, not incidentally, he was the hard-drinking, free-loving bluesman whose [mis-]adventures, already the stuff of legend in his lifetime, became elevated to near-sacred myth in the years since his death in 1963.
In the late '30s James, still a scuffling local musician, entered into a romantic liaison with Nora Mae Johnson, a Richmond, Mississippi restaurant owner. That union produced Earnest Johnson, who was born on August 21,1939. Although hardly your typical stay-at-home dad, James remained in contact with the family; when he passed through Richmond he'd drop in, maybe spread some cash around, and sometimes play and sing while he was there. As Earnest grew up, his father's music became imbedded in his mind; he also remembered the Cadillac his dad bestowed upon the family in the early '50s, after his first recorded version of Dust My Broom (on the Jackson, Mississippi-based Trumpet label) became a hit. Music was the career he wanted to pursue.
By the late '50s, Johnson was working with such Delta-based notables as guitarist Johnny Temple and drummer Willie Nix. Like countless others, though, he hungered for the brighter lights and more lucrative opportunities on offer in northern cities like Chicago. In 1965 he made the trip north. Temple had given him the address of Willie Dixon, the famed bassist/songwriter/A&R man who masterminded so many of the legendary postwar Chess sides. Dixon urged him to change his stage name from 'Earnest Jr. - Mr. Soul' to the more eye-catching “Elmore James Jr,” and set up a recording date, but the session never occurred. After that, Earnest/ Elmore Jr. did what most of his contemporaries had to do -- he took a day job and tried to insinuate himself into the competitive South Side club scene. He remembers such luminaries as the Aces, featuring Louis Myers on lead guitar, as being among the bands he worked with. But until the mid-'70s, when he cut a series of sides for Johnny Vincent's Ace label in Jackson, his dream of becoming a recording artist eluded him. (An earlier session for the obscure Chicago-based CJ label remains unissued.)
And that, until now, is pretty much the Elmore James Jr. story. This CD is that rarest of artifacts - a genuine blues “discovery,” an album featuring an artist who, until recently, was virtually unknown outside his community, and whose roots extend back into the very earth from which modern urban blues arose. The full range of Elmore Jr.'s talents are on display - rough-hewn evocations of his father's legendary 'broomdusting' style, surprisingly elegant, jazz-tinged uptown songcraft; and, of course, that unmistakable from-the-heart blues sensibility that can't be faked or approximated.
Listening to this music, you can smell the whiskey, perfume, and cigar smoke in a hard-rocking juke on a Saturday night; you can feel the voluptuous flesh of the big, fine lady who's swaying back and forth in your arms; you can see, out of the corner of your eye, the hipsters slipping a reefer back and forth in a dark corner as they toss cards onto a battered wooden table and guard their money stashes with nonchalant, ominous intensity. In short, this is the 'real thing,' the kind of blues that's often advertised but seldom delivered. And the best news is that Elmore James Jr. is still active, still delivering, and - in the wake of this CD - has expanded his touring schedule to the point where he may well blow into your town sometime soon. Don't miss him when he does.
Labels: blues, cd, chicago, music
