Eddie Lee “Guitar Slim” Jones was a renowned guitarist best known for his signature song, “The Things That I Used to Do.” The song was recorded in New Orleans in 1954 and became one of the biggest rhythm and blues hits of the 1950s.

Jones was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, on December 10, 1926. He was raised by his maternal grandmother, Mollie Edwards, after his mother died when he was five years old. As a teenager he began hanging out in the area’s juke joints, where he occasionally sat in as a singer and attracted notice as a dancer, earning the nicknames “Limber Leg Eddie” and “Rubber Legs.”

At the age of eighteen, he joined the military in the final year of World War II. After his discharge in 1946, he returned to the Delta, where he began working with Willie D. Warren as a singer. However, Warren later showed him how to play the guitar. Jones performed throughout Arkansas and Louisiana with Warren and Little Bill Wallace before migrating to New Orleans.

Around twenty-four, he began recording for Imperial Records and earned the nickname “Guitar Slim.” By the age of twenty-eight, he made the enduring hit for which he would be best remembered, “The Things That I Used to Do,” on the Specialty label. It became the biggest R&B hit of 1954 and one of the top R&B records of the 1950s, ultimately selling more than a million records. Jones stage shows were remembered as notorious—and unmatched.

Living the fast life finally wore Guitar Slim down. He died due to pneumonia in New York City on February 7, 1959. He was reportedly 32, although some documents suggest he may have been about two years older. Jones has been called the predecessor of Jimi Hendrix for the free-spirited, ferocious way he attacked his guitar. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2007.

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Guitar Slim