Dust My Broom

On November 23, 1936 Robert Johnson was in San Antonio Texas for his debut recordings. The first song he did was "Kind Hearted Woman Blues" in two versions, his second song was "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and his third was "Sweet Home Chicago." Though Johnson is usually credited with writing all three songs, there are clear antecedents for each. As far as "Broom" is concerned you would need to look back just over 4 years to a 1932 session in Atlanta Georgia by Aaron Sparks and his brother Milton (real names Aaron and Marion Gant) - as with Johnson, it was their first time in the studio. For the Victor label they cut one of their own compositions "I Believe I'll Make A Change"; it was issued using the pseudonym Pinetop and Lindberg on Victor 78 record. Aaron played piano and Milton played spoons and provided vocals. Leroy Carr and Josh White both did versions of the song in 1934 before Johnson did his interpretation.

Around 1948, Elmore James met up with Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup and Sonny Boy Williamson (who was the second artist using that name, his real name was Aleck "Rice Miller" Ford). Together they played gigs in Arkansas. In 1949, Crudup did a version of "Dust My Broom" and it seems likely that this is how Elmore got to know the song.

Elmore James' recording of "Dust My Broom" is discussed in Steve Franz' book Amazing Secret History of Elmore James. All the versions Elmore did are given in Steve's book. His first go was on August 5th, 1951 for Lillian McMurry's Trumpet label when he was in the studio recording some tracks with Sonny Boy Williamson. Urban legend has it that Elmore was tricked into recording the song by McMurry, though Franz' research gives a somewhat different account of the events that date - Lillian was adamant that Elmore was complicit in the recording. In any case, it was the first title issued with him as leader and it came out on a Trumpet 78 on the flip side of Bobo Thomas' "Catfish Blues." Fortunately for Elmore, Ms. McMurry knew nothing of the earlier versions of "Broom" by Johnson and Crudup because her policy was not to record unoriginal material. By some quirk of fate, Crudup went on to issue a record on Trumpet in 1952 using the not-dissimilar name, Elmer James.