Big Joe Williams – Tough Times (1960/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24bit/48kHz | Time – 36:26 minutes | 284 MB | Genre: Blues
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Music Manager
Joseph Lee “Big Joe” Williams (October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982) was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar. Performing over four decades, he recorded the songs “Baby Please Don’t Go”, “Crawlin’ King Snake” and “Peach Orchard Mama”, among many others, for various record labels, including Bluebird, Delmark, Okeh, Prestige and Vocalion. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on October 4, 1992.
The blues historian Barry Lee Pearson (Sounds Good to Me: The Bluesman’s Story, Virginia Piedmont Blues) described Williams’s performance:
When I saw him playing at Mike Bloomfield’s “blues night” at the Fickle Pickle, Williams was playing 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 I have ever heard.
Tracklist:
1. Big Joe Williams – Sloppy Drunk Blues
2. Big Joe Williams – Yo Yo Blues (A Levee Camp Moan)
3. Big Joe Williams – President Roosevelt
4. Big Joe Williams – 44 Blues
5. Big Joe Williams – Greystone Blues
6. Big Joe Williams – I Want My Crown
7. Big Joe Williams – Mean Stepfather
8. Big Joe Williams – Brother James
9. Big Joe Williams – Shake Your Boogie
10. Big Joe Williams – Vitamin A Blues
11. Big Joe Williams – She Left Me a Mule to Ride
12. Big Joe Williams – So Glad
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