James's most famous song has become a Blues classic like Sonny Boy's "Help Me." This song is "Dust My Blues" (written by Robert Johnson) and it opens with an explosive burst from James's slide guitar and it rocks like only the greatest rock songs. The rhythm section pounds through the basic 12 bar chord changes and James shouts out his lyric about his "no good" woman:

I don't want know no woman gonna treat me wrong all the time

I don't want know no woman gonna treat me wrong all the time

The way she mistreat me I'm about to lose my mind

I don't want no woman want every down town man she see

I don't want no woman want every down town man she see

She a no good woman but she a night owl on the street.

Following each angry phrase James plays a hard angry riff on his guitar. This song expresses the universal frustration about 'no good" women felt by every man. Few Blues songs can match the intensity of "Dust My Blues."

One of the key factors accouting for the greatness of these three Bluesmen (and one of the chief weaknesses of white Blues) is the perfect integration of the singing style and lyrics with a complementary instrumental style. This is essential, for in the Blues the instrument, like the voice, is an extension of the Bluesman, his suffering, his pain, his love, his soul and his ability to express his feelings through his Blues.

This combination of singing and instrumental break is known as "call and response" and is the core of the Blues.

Typically, the singer delivers a line or two of iambic pentameter which is followed by a complementary instrumental figure which leads into the second line which is often a word for word repetition of the first line. This second line is often punctuated at the beginning with an explanation like "Yeah, Lord have mercy," or "Baby." The third line resolves in some way the thought described in the first two lines. Thus every song or spoken phrase in a Blues number is balanced or commented upon by an instrumental response often carrying with it as important a message as the preceding words.

Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Spann, and Elmore James knew these ideas instinctively. When Elmore James shouts the lyrics about his no good woman over the driving beat created by his rhythm section and then cuts loose with a barrage of savage notes he renders literary descriptions meaningless. Every man regardless of taste in music must be moved by the emotion and power of Elmore James' performance.

Elmore James died in 1964 and though his electric slide guitar style is still played by men like J. B. Hutto and Homesick James, in the clubs of Chicago, it has declined in popularity and has been replaced by the more polished style personified by singer-guitarist B. B. King. King has said that Elmore James was one of the most important influences on his own style. However, he was never able to adapt himself to the slide technique, and instead developed a multinote style which combines the intensity of the slide technique of James with complexity of the more improvisational jazz guitarists such as Django Reinhart and Charlie Christian.

B. B. King is the universally acknowledged king of the Blues today. While young white guitar players rave about Clapton and Bloomfield, in turn, (as well as Buddy Guy and Albert King) they all praise the master, B. B. King. B. B. King is near fifty and he has paid his dues. He has been playing the Blues professionally longer than Bloomfield and Clapton have been alive, doing one night stands which took him from Jacksonville, Fla., to Austin, Texas, to Los Angeles, Calif., and back again in a month without a day of rest, along dusty roads, in men's rooms for coloreds,' and segregated restaurants and hotels, singing and play-for people who lived the Blues every day of their lives.

When he sings "Every Day I Have the Blues," "Worry Worry Worry" or "The Night Life," he is singing about his own life and when he plays one of his incredible runs he is playing and knowing it with his whole body. He didn't learn about Blues notes from reading about them in a book or listening to them on a record, he experienced them.