It began here, in the safety of the suburbs, black vinyl spinning in someone's back room, George Harrison bragging on John Lennon during the bridge in the Beatles' “For You Blue,” a minor track from 1970's Let It Be“: “Elmore James got nothin' on this, baby.”
Elmore James was 45 when he died of a heart attack on May 24, 1963, while staying with his cousin Homesick James in Chicago, with his first tour of Europe weeks away. He was, thus, in 1970, in no position to defend himself, nor to take advantage of the boast. Harrison, who started the song while staying with Bob Dylan in Woodstock, in 1968, described it as a country blues, which wasn't James' calling card, and apparently assumed that all rock slide guitar flowed from the legacy of one relatively obscure bluesman.
