Release Date: July 15, 2014.
Recording Time: 84 minutes.
Recording Date: 1957 - 1965.
Release Info: 2 x CD, Compilation (302 062 014 2).
Styles: Acoustic Blues, Country Blues, Delta Blues.
Big Joe Williams recorded for several small labels in the '50s, pounding out rough country blues on his half-homemade nine-string Sovereign guitar tuned to an open G, but as powerful as these rough sides were, they were too Delta and too rustic country blues to catch the ears of the R&B crowd. Williams didn't really find a larger audience until the folk and blues boom of the '60s. This two-disc set collects several of those early-'50s sides, and it's vintage Williams, wonderfully ragged and wild. ~ Steve Leggett.
Bluesman Big Joe Williams made a few singles during '50s, but his approach was much too antiquated to entice the R&B market, so they made little commercial impression. It was only when a new demographic materialized at the dawn of the '60, college folk-blues fans eager to embrace Big Joe's powerful, totally uncompromising brand of Delta blues, that he came roaring back. He wielded a battered nine-string Sovereign guitar tuned in open G with three extra strings attached to a crudely affixed set of tuning pegs drilled into the very top of its headstock doubling the first, second, and fourth strings. It rang every bit as loud as William's gruff, road-tested pipes. No wonder the coffeehouse crowd was mesmerized.
Notes by Bill Dahl enclosed.
The late Big Joe Williams, a literal giant of the blues, recorded so many quality albums that this title seems like smoke. Yet these 30 cuts do beg for inclusion among his best. Backed by pianist Erwin Helfer at Cobra's tiny Chicago studio in 1957, Williams invokes the magic of the 1930s with his distinctive nine-string guitar and tatter-edged voice on the opening tunes, including his trademark Baby Please Don't Go. Later there's a match-up with Lightnin' Hopkins and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, in which they all trade licks, lyrics, and harp notes in an amiable jam through Chain Gang Blues. It's fun to catch Hopkins and Williams trying to outdo each other--Hopkins tossing off a rippling single-note solo, Williams pushing his voice up into ghost howls. Nonetheless, the best shot at hearing what the blues sounded like on a street corner in the pre-electrification Delta is the last nine numbers. Williams goes it mostly alone on those songs from 1963, stomping his foot, thumb-snapping low notes, and laying down bright flashes of slide behind his shouted words. The strings rattle against the frets under his determined bottleneck playing, lending muscularity to the sadness so many of these performances evoke. It's that physical nature of Williams's art--his crisp, soaring vocal phrases and the stuttering, impetuous breaks of his accenting chords, solos, and slide--that makes even the lowdown themes of sickness and loss that reverberate in tunes like Razor Sharp Blues and I Feel So Worried convey his dignity and power.
Credits: Bill Dahl - Liner Notes; Erwin Helfer - Piano (tracks: 1-9); Kate Moss - Design; Big Joe Williams - Primary Artist.
Tracklist:
- 1-01. Cottage Grove - Big Joe Williams
- 1-02. Meet Me In The Bottom - Big Joe Williams
- 1-03. Bessemer Baby - Big Joe Williams
- 1-04. Baby Please Don't Go - Big Joe Williams
- 1-05. Highway 49 - Big Joe Williams
- 1-06. Shake Your Boogie - Big Joe Williams
- 1-07. Jump Baby Jump - Big Joe Williams
- 1-08. Mean Mistreater - Big Joe Williams
- 1-09. Prison Bound - Big Joe Williams
- 1-10. Razor Sharp Blues - Big Joe Williams
- 1-11. So Soon I'll Be Goin' My Way Back Home - Big Joe Williams
- 1-12. Shake 'Em On Down - Big Joe Williams
- 1-13. Don't You Leave Me Here - Big Joe Williams
- 1-14. Fickle Pickle - Big Joe Williams
- 1-15. Ramblin' And Wanderin' Blues - Big Joe Williams
- 2-01. Don't The Apples Look Mellow - Big Joe Williams
- 2-02. El Paso Blues - Big Joe Williams
- 2-03. Shaggy Hound Blues - Big Joe Williams
- 2-04. Whistlin' Pines - Big Joe Williams
- 2-05. I Ain't Got Nobody - Big Joe Williams
- 2-06. Sugar Mama - Big Joe Williams
- 2-07. Wild Cow Moan - Big Joe Williams
- 2-08. Screamin' And Cryin' - Big Joe Williams
- 2-09. Sinkin' Blues - Big Joe Williams
- 2-10. Put On Your Nightcap Baby - Big Joe Williams
- 2-11. Don't Want No Big Fat Woman - Big Joe Williams
- 2-12. Ride In My New Car Blues - Big Joe Williams
- 2-13. I Feel So Worried - Big Joe Williams
- 2-14. Stack O'Dollars - Big Joe Williams
- 2-15. Everyboday Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone - Big Joe Williams
Tracks 1-1 to 1-9 complete Cobra Records (Sessions 19570, tracks 1-11 to 1-15 & 2-1 to 2-3 rec. 1963 first rel. on Ramblin' And Wanderin' Blues, tracks 2-4 & 2-5 rec. 1963 first rel. on Rare Blues (The Takoma Blues Series) - Previously Unreleased Blues Recordings From The Collection Of Norman Dayron, tracks 2- 13 & 2-14 rec. 1965 first rel. on Chicago Breakdown.
Tracks 1-10 & 2-6 to 2-10 recorded live at The Fickle Pickle, 1963.
Originally done for Cobra Records, Roy C. Ames & Prime Entertainment, Inc.