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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Fantastic Christmas Songs
Jazz - Released by Best Holidays Recordings on 10 dec. 2021
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An American Singer, Songwriter, Blues Master, Volume 4; The Complete Singles 1935-1941
R&B - Released by PROFOUND on 30 jun. 2021
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Big Joe Williams
Blues - Released by Archive of Folk & Jazz Music on 10 okt. 1964
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Big Joe Williams Played The Blues
R&B - Released by Sunset Blvd. Records on 11 mei 2018
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Big Joe Williams
Blues - Released by L+R Records on 29 apr. 1996
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Daylights Nightlights Best Songs
Jazz - Released by Daylights Nightlights Recordz TM on 28 jan. 2021
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My Music My Mood My Soul
Jazz - Released by Classics Works Recordings on 29 sep. 2020
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An American Singer, Songwriter, Blues Master, Volume 1 (Remastered)
R&B - Released by PROFOUND on 30 jun. 2021
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Baby Please Don't Go
Blues - Released by Vanilla OMP on 29 nov. 2010
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Best of Blues
Big Joe Williams, Pee Wee Crayton, Ray Charles
Blues - Released by Music Manager on 19 jun. 2015
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Baby Please Don't Go
Pop - Released by Rock 'n' Roll Experience on 16 mei 2017
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Listen My Shuffle (Remastered)
Blues - Released by Underground Inside Records on 8 jul. 2016
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My Happy Heaven (Remastered)
Blues - Released by Underground Inside Records on 11 mrt. 2016
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Blues Legends: Big Joe Williams (Remastered)
Blues - Released by Kateland on 3 feb. 2014
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The Final Years (Album Version)
Jazz - Released by Universal Music Division Decca Records France on 1 jan. 1994
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Piney Woods Blues
Blues - Released by Vinyle Numérique on 15 apr. 2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Big Joe Williams and the Stars of Mississippi Blues (D)
Blues - Released by JSP Records on 18 jul. 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo