Guitar Slim – The Things That I Used To Do – Ace Records AHD 110

This 1984 16-track Guitar Slim collection is an amazing and fully nourishing dive into the power, majesty, and enduring legacy of one of the blues realm’s most flamboyant performers ever.

None other than modern-day blues guitar hero Buddy Guy still cites Guitar Slim (Eddie Jones) as one of the chief influences on his equally showy, loud, and flashy performing style. 

Astoundingly an impactful “live” performer, often atop the shoulders of his personal attendant while strolling amongst the crowd at one of his shows, his long guitar cord trailing his audience travels, decked out in a suit of clothes of vibrant colors with his hair often matching its hue, Guitar Slim took his varied influences (certainly T-Bone Walker, B.B. King for sure, and even Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown), and coalesced them into his own unforgettable guitar style.

Incensed and scorching, Guitar Slim’s Specialty Records label songs enjoyably found here are volatile masterpieces one and all.  He sings with a gospel abandon, with his heated guitar stanzas matched by the always crack bands employed, including Joe Tillman’s saxophone wailings stirring the flaring proceedings, with Ray Charles’ work on his signature opus “The Things That I Used To Do” making this, perhaps, the only Guitar Slim collection you would ever need, though the bulk of this and additional tracks can be found on the Ace Records CD of the same title (Ace Records CDCHD 318).

Below are the tracks from this epoch-making LP, one your collection needs, especially if you prefer the sonic quality of vinyl!

Song Titles

• Well I Done Got Over It
• Trouble Don’t Last
• Guitar Slim
• The Story Of My Life
• A Letter To My Girlfriend
• Reap What You Sow
• Later For You Baby
• The Things That I Used To Do
• Quicksand
• Bad Luck Blues
• Think It Over
• Our Only Child
• I Got Sumpin’ For You
• Sufferin’ Mind
• Twenty Five Lies
• Something To Remember You By

Essential, essential, essential!