I Used To Search All Night For You Darling, But My Search Would Always End In Vain

If you ever want to get me fired up, ask me about the state of rock radio stations.  They pretty much all suck these days compared to when I was cutting my teeth.  I can remember when the local stations had DJs who were knowledgeable about the subject and would open sonic doors to new music.  That said, my local radio station around here, 107.1 The Peak, is a pretty decent one.  Its got DJs who actually care about the music they play and the play lists don't seem as programed as some of the more corporate stations.  I think the fact that it lies about as far right on the dial as a station can go might have something to do with it, but they're pretty active in the local music scene and play good music pretty much all the time and will even spin some pretty deep cuts.

Now, every night at around 8 pm they've got a syndicated show called the "Blues Break" or something like thats hosted by Dan Aykroyd as Ray Stantz, Louis Winthorpe III, Elwood Blues (Dan...if you happen to read this and are looking to hire someone to help with the blues mobile, hit me up)

Anyway...the point of my story, if there even is one, is that yesterday he spun one of my favorite tunes of all time, we're talking top 50 material (stay tuned for Goofus Thomas's top 50 songs of all time - Mgt.); "The Things That I Used To Do" by Eddie "Guitar Slim" Jones.  Born on December 10, 1926, which I guess is why Elwood was spinning him on Monday.  Eddie was known for his wild onstage antics.  He would hook his guitar up to his amps with a 350 foot cord and he would walk out into the audience, out the front door and into the street, without missing a lick.  He would wear brightly colored suits and dye his hair to match.  His influence on Rock and Roll is huge; Buddy Guy, after seeing Guitar Slim play said that he wanted to play like B.B. King and act like Guitar Slim.  When I saw Buddy Guy play in 1999, he walked out into the audience with a long guitar cord and played solos among the crowd at the Ira Allen Chapel at UVM.  Buddy Guy begat Eric Clapton and so on and so forth.

In 1953, Guitar Slim recorded, "The Things That I Used To Do" for Specialty Records.  It was produced by a young, and I would assume at that point, relatively unknown, Ray Charles, who also played piano on the track (watch him shake a tail feather above and hear him say "Yeahhh" at the end of the recording below when they finally nailed the recording - Mgt.).  Slim supposedly said that the song came to him in a dream where the devil and an angel fought each other with competing lyrics.  The devil won, which might shine a light onto the lyrics (it might not though -Mgt.).

 

So...without further ado..."The Things That I Used To Do"



In 1964 James Brown recorded a version...



And in 1984, 31 years after (hard to believe that 1984 was only 31 years after 1953 - Mgt.) it was originally recorded, Stevie Ray Vaughn SLAYS it, at Carnegie Hall...



It's not hard to see why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listed this as one of the top 500 (?! - Mgt.) songs that shaped rock and roll.

As always.  PLAY 'EM LOUD! It's rock and roll after all.