Eddie "Guitar Slim" Jones. A Mississippi/New Orleans blues guitar player and singer made his name in the early 1950's with his wild stage act. Wearing bright coloured suits with hair dyed to match (!), he had an assistant follow him around the audience with up to 350 feet of cord between amplifier and guitar. Along with playing a distorted guitar sound Eddie was setting the stage for rock and roll in years to come.
He had a million selling song ‘The Things That I Used to Do’, which spent weeks at number one in the R&B charts eventually becoming a blues standard. How much did he see in royalties from it? Judging by his career which faded quickly it wasn't enough to stop Eddie becoming an alcoholic, dying at the young age of 32 in 1959 in New York.
There are few pictures of Guitar Slim. Sadly none from his flamboyant stage show days.
Here he plays a blues "Standin' At The Station" (along with some shots of 1950's New Orleans)
