Big Joe Williams - 'Shake Your Boogie'

 

Big Joe Williams is not the biggest name in the history of the blues, but his is an important one.  He bridges the period from the early delta blues to the blues/folk revival of the 1960s.  He was a mentor in the early 30s to Muddy Waters and in the early 60s to Bob Dylan.  Big Joe's first wife was St. Louis blues singer, Bessie Mae Smith, whom he sometimes credited with writing (she did not) his best known song "Baby, Please Don’t Go".

"Big Joe" played a Sovereign acoustic flat-top, that he modified to a nine-string guitar.  He attached three more tuning pegs to the top of the head, and drilled holes in the bridge to accommodate the three extra strings, which doubled the first, second and fourth strings.  He tuned it in G (open tuning): d-g-d-d-g-b-b-d-d.  Joe played with a capo on the first fret, and sometimes the second.  Amplifying the guitar was an afterthought, with masking tape holding the body together and keeping the pick-up from falling out.  The word ramshackle doesn't even begin to describe Big Joe's axe.

'Shake Your Boogie' released in 1990 on the Arhoolie label is the Big Joe Williams CD, I play the most.  It's actually a combination of two albums, 'Tough Times' from 1961, and 'Thinking of What They Did to Me' from 1969.  Charlie Musselwhite guests with his harp on three numbers.

Big Joe sings grumbles and roars through autobiographical, traditional, and improvised blues tunes, dealin with love, life, hardships and bad habits.  I love the way this album evokes the sound of the hot and humid Mississippi Delta.

For the freeload, tell us what are your favorite albums that feature a guest musician or singer?