Elmore James - Classic or beyond classic?

no thread on ilm about the king of the slide guitar?

Beyond classic

there happened to be a good recent post about him here:

http://thehoundblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/elmore-james.html

Hmm, I dunno. Years ago I bought "The Collection: 20 Blues Greats" on the Italian Deja Vu label and was disappointed. Started out great, with his yelping voice and guitar tone to match, but after the sixth song and the sixth near-identical "Dust My Broom" retread it got pretty depressingly tedious. Seriously, every song built upon that exact same slide-guitar part, with only the tempo varying somewhat (if at all.) I never bothered to investigate any other Elmore records. I might welcome hearing one if it offered more variety - like an occasional boogie rather than shuffle after shuffle.

I highly recommend the Capricorn King of the Slide Guitar set. Two discs, pretty loaded with the "Dust My Broom" derivatives, but you get a bunch of other really great tunes - Shake Your Money Maker, Rollin' and Tumblin', and a ton of others.

I think the thing I love the most about Elmore is the palpable sense of pure spaz he transmits on each record. He is clearly giving it everything he's got. His voice is one of THE blues voices of all times, for me.

The Fire version of ‘Rollin’ and Tumblin’ is pretty much birth of the chooglin. It’s crazy groovy.