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Artist
Elam McKnight
12+ albums
bluescoolblues rock
about
Elam McKnight I got exposed to the blues when I was young, says Elam McKnight. I had an uncle who used to carry me to Beale Street in Memphis, nothing like it is now, and there was this old cat down there named Alabama Red. He would play guitar in this old gazebo that is now long gone to the tourist trade. He played the really old gutbucket stuff and he would look in my eyes and I sat there transfixed and say ‘I can tell you want to do this just by the look in your eyes. I was maybe 15 and it did something to me. It scared me to be exposed to it. That rascal put something on me that I have yet since been able to wash off. What is immediately obvious when you hear McKnight is that he did not get this thing washed off of him. Heralded by critics as one of the best new artists of the future primitive movement, a new crop of artists who abate away from mere copying and clean studio slick-ness to instead tangle themselves in the deep roots of the past, and take a unique spin on the sounds of old and always searching anew for the primal place where all great music stems from. Cats like me and a bunch of others are in this thing for the right reasons. Most of us are just as happy to be playing in some juke joint or country picnic as any other place. Another unique feature of our little thing is that it is almost never about competition, a total pitch in and do your thing. It is very tribal and old world. As a youngster McKnight caught the curse of music. I devoured any blues album
