Elmore James

This was Elmore's prime guitar that gave him his twangy and iconic delta blues silde sound.

The guitar in the picture has two Dearmond pickups. The pickup closer to the bridge appears to be a DeArmond Rhythm Chief.

At 1:29:30 of the referenced Youtube video there is a photograph which shows that Elmore James is clearly playing an Epiphone hollow body archtop with the Tree of Life headstock and Epiphone E trussrod cover. Though a lot of the details in the guitar top are a bit blown out due to overexposure, the frequensator tailpiece is quite apparent. The Broadway is the only guitar of this type that Epiphone exhibits on their website that has the "Tree of Life" headstock and a frequensator tailpiece.

In this photo from Guitarsexchange, Elmore James is seen performing on stage with a 1950s Magnatone amplifier. While it is often suggested that the amp is a Magnatone Model 280, the image lacks the detail needed to confirm this specific model.

In this grainy image of Elmore James on the cover of an instructional book, he can be seen holding a Silvertone.

Elmore James played a Kay K-6000 "Western Rhythm" guitar fitted with two DeArmond pickups, a RHC-B in the soundhole and a Rhythm Chief 1000 just in front of the bridge. The combination of these pickups with the crude X-bracing of the Kay gave him his unique and iconic sound. Before the DeArmond pickups, the guitar had a different electric guitar pickup fitted in the soundhole. The guitar also had a trapeze tailpiece attached to it, and it was used to hold the strings instead of the original bridge.

"One photo important to me, first published in this book [The Amazing Secret History of Elmore James by Steve Franz], was Elmore playing his Kay guitar, with his picking right-hand out of the way, showing proof of the Dearmond Rhythm Chief Model 1000 pickup, mounted on it. It took me like 15 years to work out what pickup he was using and to locate one, for a half decent price on ebay and try it out on a dreadnought acoustic - and YES, it gives the "Elmore sound" ! " months later, the book came out with the proof I had been looking for all those years !!!"