What is the most stolen guitar riff in history?
Rock music is an inherently collaborative medium. Even beyond the standard totem of rock bands creating their songs together, for the longest time, riffs were less expressions of individual creativity and more communal. Passed around for everyone to add their own flavour to. Of course, by the start of the 1970s, that community feel was spiked somewhat by bands and artists claiming those riffs as their own, making a ton of money out of them and playing hardball with copyright lawyers to prevent anyone from doing the same. However, there’s still something genuine about those years beforehand.
It’s a tradition cribbed from rock’s heritage in blues music. The circuit that the likes of Lead Belly, Blind Willie McTell and Ma Rainey cut their teeth on was underground enough that it was rare record companies and especially something so crass as copyright law would ever become an issue. It was a live scene where the line between an original and a cover was a very thin one indeed. If an artist played something cool, it would more often than not be cribbed by another artist in the audience, changed around and made their own. Few people in history experienced this more than Robert Johnson.
It’s fair to say that Johnson, quite literally, is more myth now than man. Any guitar player will tell you what that man is doing with six strings and a slide is not normal, and God only knows what it must have been like to watch him perform live. We can get a feel for it though, based on just how influential his work has been since. In particular, his track ‘I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom’, itself a grab bag of disparate blues tracks from The Sparks Brothers and Jack Kelly, became a touchstone for the genre thanks to Elmore James taking a version into the R&B singles charts in 1952.
Now, here comes the big question when it comes to all of these artists swapping songs around. Elmore James’s ‘Dust My Broom’ is definitely inspired by the Robert Johnson version. However, it adds some new lyrics and, most notably, the iconic, jangling slide riff that you may not know you’ve heard before but you’ve definitely heard before.
On his version of the record, James is the credited songwriter, and is that justified? To me, as a precursor to the era of sampling, the answer lies somewhere in the middle, but considering just how many variations of the ‘Dust My Broom’ riff appeared on the market afterwards, both Johnson and James have a right to be aggrieved.
James’ version, however, was an instant hit. Versions of the song were recorded by fellow bluesmen Arthur Crudup and Robert J Lockwood within years of James’ version being released. Where the electric slide of James’ version really found a home, though, was in the UK. Particularly influencing a young slide guitarist by the name of Jeremy Spencer, who would cover several Elmore James songs on the early records by his band, a combo by the name of Fleetwood Mac.
This brings us back to the big question: James was credited as the writer of the song, as he so often is when it comes to versions of ‘Dust My Broom’. Is that fair, though? It’s a version of a Robert Johnson song but the two of them couldn’t be more different. There probably isn’t a definite answer, but we can at least be grateful that someone who originally made the song got credit for writing it, eh Led Zeppelin?
