Big Joe Williams
Big Joe Williams may have been the most cantankerous human being who ever walked the earth with guitar in hand. At the same time, he was an incredible blues musician: a gifted songwriter, a powerhouse vocalist, and an exceptionally idiosyncratic guitarist. Despite his deserved reputation as a fighter (documented in Michael Bloomfield's bizarre booklet Me and Big Joe), artists who knew him well treated him as a respected elder statesman. Even so, they may not have chosen to play with him, because -- as with other older Delta artists -- if you played with him you played by his rules.
As protégé David "Honeyboy" Edwards described him, Williams in his early Delta days was a walking musician who played work camps, jukes, store porches, streets, and alleys from New Orleans to Chicago. He recorded through five decades for Vocalion, OKeh, Paramount, Bluebird, Prestige, Delmark, and many others. According to Charlie Musselwhite, he and Big Joe kicked off the blues revival in Chicago in the '60s.
When appearing at Mike Bloomfield's "blues night" at The Fickle Pickle, Williams played an electric nine-string guitar through a small ramshackle amp with a pie plate nailed to it and a beer can dangling against that. When he played, everything rattled but Big Joe himself. The total effect of this incredible apparatus produced the most buzzing, sizzling, African-sounding music one would likely ever hear.
Anyone who wants to learn Delta blues must one day come to grips with the idea that the guitar is a drum as well as a melody-producing instrument. A continuous, African-derived musical tradition emphasizing percussive techniques on stringed instruments from the banjo to the guitar can be heard in the music of Delta stalwarts Charley Patton, Fred McDowell, and Bukka White. Each employed decidedly percussive techniques, beating on his box, knocking on the neck, snapping the strings, or adding buzzing or sizzling effects to augment the instrument's percussive potential. However, Big Joe Williams, more than any other major recording artist, embodied the concept of guitar-as-drum, bashing out an incredible series of riffs on his G-tuned nine-string for over 60 years.
© Barry Lee Pearson /TiVo
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Live in Chicago
Blues - Erschienen bei Bringins Music am 27.01.2011
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Big Joe Williams And The Stars Of Mississippi Blues
Blues - Erschienen bei JSP Records am 25.04.2006
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Joe Williams 1935-1945: The Giant of the 9 Strings Guitar (Blues Collection Historic Recordings)
Blues - Erschienen bei EPM am 09.04.1996
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Big Joe Williams 1935-1951: Baby Please Don't Go
Blues - Erschienen bei Fremeaux Heritage am 26.08.2003
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Shake Your Boogie
Blues - Erschienen bei Wolf Records International GmbH am 07.08.2007
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Big Joe Williams Revisited
Blues - Erschienen bei Fuel 2000 am 18.08.2006
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The Original Ramblin' Bluesman (1945-1961)
Blues - Erschienen bei Jasmine Records am 13.12.2019
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My Magic Christmas Songs
Jazz - Erschienen bei Happy Holidays Recordings am 11.12.2020
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Chewred Up Grass
Jazz - Erschienen bei Black & Partner Licenses LLC am 09.04.2019
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Wild Mood Best Tracks
Jazz - Erschienen bei Wild Mood Best Tracks Recordings am 24.09.2021
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Meet Me Around the CornerNothing But the Blues
Big Joe Williams, John Lee Hooker
Blues - Erschienen bei History am 02.01.1999
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Blues Masters Vol. 2
Blues - Erschienen bei Storyville am 20.11.1991
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Hell Bound and Heaven Sent Blues
Big Joe Williams, Short Stuff Macon
Blues - Erschienen bei Folkways Records am 01.01.1968
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Big Joe Williams - Baby Please Do
Blues - Erschienen bei Westmill am 25.03.2016
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Delight Beautiful Tracks
Jazz - Erschienen bei Daylights Nightlights Recordz TM am 23.05.2021
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Baby Please Don't Go
Blues - Erschienen bei Ten12 Entertainment am 06.11.2014
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Chewred Up Grass
Pop - Erschienen bei Royal Bakerfield Music am 09.04.2019
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Big Joe Williams - By Baby
Blues - Erschienen bei Eastmill am 09.10.2017
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Milestones of a Legend - Delta Blues, Vol. 6
Blues - Erschienen bei Documents 2 am 10.03.2017
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Sensational Flight Call (Remastered)
Jazz - Erschienen bei Sensational Flight Call Recording am 19.02.2021
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