Guitar Slim - The Things That I Used To Do

Eddie Jones (December 10, 1926 – February 7, 1959), better known as Guitar Slim, was a New Orleans blues guitarist in the 1940s and 1950s, best known for the million-selling song "The Things That I Used to Do", produced by Johnny Vincent for Specialty Records. It is listed in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Slim had a major impact on rock and roll and experimented with distorted overtones on the electric guitar a full decade before Jimi Hendrix. Jones was born in Greenwood, Mississippi. His mother died when he was five, and he was raised by his grandmother. In his teen years he worked in cotton fields and spent his free time at juke joints, where he started sitting in as a singer or dancer; he was good enough as a dancer that he was nicknamed "Limber Leg".

Buddy Guy, Albert Collins and Frank Zappa were influenced by Guitar Slim. So was Jimi Hendrix, who recorded a version of "The Things That I Used to Do", with Steve Stills playing bass guitar, in 1969. Stevie Ray Vaughan also recorded a cover version of the song. One of Jones's sons bills himself as Guitar Slim, Jr. around the New Orleans circuit. His repertoire includes many of his father's songs.

His career having faded, Jones became an alcoholic. He died of pneumonia in New York City, at the age of 32. He is buried in a small cemetery in Thibodaux, Louisiana, where his manager, Hosea Hill, resided.