Guitar Slim - The Things That I Used To Do

With all due respect for the late Earl King and Smiley Lewis, Eddie "Guitar Slim" Jones was the best guitarist to ever come out of New Orleans. Although born in Greenwood Mississippi, instead of following his contemporaries to Memphis and Chicago, he headed to the "Big Easy" which is why I believe his sound is so special. I love the "blues" guitar surrounded by the distinctive New Orleans sound. By the way, at the end of the song you can hear someone yell out "Yeah" in the background. It's the voice of a young Ray Charles when he was hanging out over at Cosimo Matassa's studios over on N. Ramport St, the border line of the French Quarter and Treme. Dead at the age of 32, I feel as if those "demons" that made him so great may have also cheated us of so much more of what Mr. Jones had to offer. RIP

Category:

Music

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• Aaron Neville
• Art Neville
• Cyril Neville
• Neville Brothers
• Naomi Neville
• New Orleans
• 9th Ward
• Allen Toussaint
• Cosimo Matassa
• Cosimos
• Dave Bartholomew
• Fats Domino
• Mardi Gras
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[newaccountdebzbd]

SRV just wails on this one. I think Slim and SRV would have gotten along just fine.

[9thWardJukebox]

@newaccountdebzbd I would think there would have been a mutual admiration of each other. Ironically that both lives were cut very short.

[monkeytown1000]

Ray Charles did the arrangement but was also very taken with Guitar Slim's preach blues, gospel style and In 1954 Ray released his first overtly, gospel based single "I've Got A Woman" - the rest is history.

Slim as a performer was the Hendrix of his day. Flashily dressd, he had a 340 foot guitar cord so he could be carried out on an assitant's shoulders into the audience to play & sometimes out into the street causing mayhem. A true original & very influential.

[9thWardJukebox]

@monkeytown1000 Great info. Would have loved to witness that. Had to be mayhem. We all know about Ray's excited utterance at the end of "The Things That I Used To Do". It's just incredible to think of Ray as a session musician recording at Cosimo's.

[mmozzis]

where is the "i"????????

[mmozzis]

@9thWardJukebox look at the juke box... :)

[guitartech9]

@monkeytown1000

Wasn't it Albert Collins with the long guitar cable?

[9thWardJukebox]

@OrwellianNightmareOw I thought I would be "belly up" by 40 but it is amazing what the human body can endure.

[Mixtapeworm]

This competes with the Wilbert Harrison version

[Tomatelasrabeta]

Oh, yeah...things that I used to do...just no more, fucking time; it s so bad and quickly...

[9thWardJukebox]

@d820m This song was the most played song of all my songs every day since I posted it up until about 3 weeks ago. Rebirth Brass Band - Do Whatcha Wanna has just taken over the spot and I don't know why unless it's because of HBO's Treme. There are days now when Slim's classic is not even in the top 10 listens. For the 20 or so months this channel has been up, this song still has a comfortable lead with 3% of all views followed by Bobby Charles The Mardi Gras Song @1.6% and Rebirth @ 1.5%.