Elmore James Gits Blue

Due to the nature of the recording industry, a huge number of second or third generation blues players didn’t see proper album releases. Of course, their predecessor’s didn’t have anything other then 78s to work with, but at the dawning of long player’s economic viability, some of the players that remained saw work cobbled together and issued as some surreptitious full length. The fact that most of the albums constructed in this manner were culled from various and sundry recording dates didn’t result in too many of the discs becoming more than a piece of history. Surely, some are pillars in the progression of blues, but that might in part be because that’s all we have.

Elmore James, though, recorded such a tremendous amount of music that fitting any variety of music that he worked out onto a single album seems like a tremendous ordeal. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been done, though. And in the years leading up to his death – he had a weak heart – Chess and other imprints that the guitarist and singer worked with began issuing James’ work in this new format.

Released in 1969, six years after James passed away and alongside the entire blues revival thing was giving away to stuffs that it inspired, Whose Muddy Shoes saw the light of day. Much in the same way that other albums of this nature were put together the disc comprised sessions from a variety of years – 1953, ’54, ’56, and ’60. It’s rather easy to hear not just the difference in each ensemble’s make up, but also the progression of recording technology. It’s fidelity notwithstanding, the likes of Willie Dixon, Little Walter and Robert Lockwood, Jr. accompanied James at points throughout the runtime of the album.

The bulk of the disc is given over to work recorded in ’53 as 9 tracks count that recording date. On these offerings, James and company cop a style that at once recalls Howlin’ Wolf and any number of other rock progenitors. There’s a swagger on tracks like “Ice Cream Man” that so clearly point the way towards ‘60s rock stuff that there’s no use discussing where the genre was headed.

An assured air is easy to understand even on these earliest dates, which probably points to James long career even so early in the ‘50s. Working in Mississippi found a younger James alongside genre pillars like Robert Johnson and his brethren. And included in these earliest sessions is a version of “Dust My Broom” as an homage to this guitarist’s avowed hero. On this particular rendition, its saxophone is able to propel the work forward as much as James’ singular slide playing. And while there are innumerable highpoints to be found over the duration of the disc, it’s hard to surpass some of these early sides.

The only thing restraining Whose Muddy Shoes is that it feels like a retrospective as opposed to a proper album. But being upset about that is equivalent to cussing out a chair for not being a couch. And who would do that?