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Blues, Music Calendar

Today: The late Big Joe Williams was born in 1903, 110 years ago

big joe williams

Baby, please don’t go
Baby, please don’t go
Baby, please don’t go
Down to New Orleans
You know I love you so
Baby, please don’t go

“The way I think about the blues, comes from what I learned from Big Joe Williams.”
~Bob Dylan (“The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” Liner Notes)

From Wikipedia

Birth name Joseph Lee Williams
Born October 16, 1903
Crawford, Mississippi, United States
Died December 17, 1982 (aged 79)
Macon, Mississippi, United States
Genres Delta blues
Occupations Musician, songwriter
Instruments Vocals, guitar
Labels Bluebird, Delmark, Okeh, Prestige, Vocalion Records

Joseph Lee Williams (October 16, 1903 – December 17, 1982), billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, 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 such songs as “Baby Please Don’t Go”, “Crawlin’ King Snake” and “Peach Orchard Mama” for a variety of record labels, including Bluebird, Delmark, Okeh, Prestige and Vocalion. Williams was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on October 4, 1992.

Blues historian Barry Lee Pearson (Sounds Good to Me: The Bluesman’s Story, Virginia Piedmont Blues) attempted to document the gritty intensity of the Williams persona in this description:

“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”.

 

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.
~Barry Lee Pearson (allmusic.com)

big joe williams

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Here are 2 great videos from youtube with BJW playing live:

Album of the day – The Very Best Of Big Joe Williams

the very best big joe williams

 

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan video

Bob Dylan: Where Teardrops Fall, London, England 8 February 1990 (Video)

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bob dylan london 1990

Far away where the soft winds blow
Far away from it all
There is a place you go
Where teardrops fall

Far away in the stormy night
Far away and over the wall
You are there in the flickering light
Where teardrops fall

Hammersmith Odeon
London, England
8 February 1990

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
  • G. E. Smith (guitar)
  • Tony Garnier (bass)
  • Christopher Parker (drums)

We banged the drum slowly
And played the fife lowly
You know the song in my heart
In the turning of twilight
In the shadows of moonlight
You can show me a new place to start

I’ve torn my clothes and I’ve drained the cup
Strippin’ away at it all
Thinking of you when the sun comes up
Where teardrops fall

By rivers of blindness
In love and with kindness
We could hold up a toast if we meet
To the cuttin’ of fences
To sharpen the senses
That linger in the fireball heat

Roses are red, violets are blue
And time is beginning to crawl
I just might have to come see you
Where teardrops fall

 
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-Egil

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan video

Bob Dylan: Long Black Veil, Wheeling, West Virginia 28 April 1997 (Video)

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bob dylan 1997

 

Ten years ago, on a cold, dark night
There was someone killed ‘neath the Town hall light
There were few at the scene, but they all agreed
That the man who ran looked a lot like me

Capitol Music Hall
Wheeling, West Virginia
28 April 1997

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
  • Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
  • Larry Campbell (guitar)
  • Tony Garnier (bass)
  • David Kemper (drums & percussion)

She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave while the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me

The judge said Son, what’s your alibi
If you were somewhere else, then you won’t have to die
I spoke not a word thought it meant my life
For I’d been in the arms of my best friend’s wife

(Refrain)

The scaffold was high and eternity near
She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear
But sometime at night when the cold winds moan
In a long black veil she cries over my bones

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-Egil

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan video

Bob Dylan: Hard Rain, Bologne – 10 Nov 2005 (video)

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bob dylan bologna 2005

 

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Palamalaguti
Bologne, Italy
10 November 2005

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & piano)
  • Stu Kimball (guitar)
  • Denny Freeman (guitar)
  • Donnie Herron (violin, mandolin, pedal steel guitar)
  • Tony Garnier (bass)
  • George Recile (drums & percussion)

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

 

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-Egil

Music Calendar

Today: Janis Joplin passed away in 1970, 43 years ago

janis-joplin

On stage I make love to twenty five thousand people; and then I go home alone.
~Janis Joplin

You know why we’re stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don’t let themselves feel things.
~Janis Joplin

The greatest white female rock singer of the 1960s, Janis Joplin was also a great blues singer, making her material her own with her wailing, raspy, supercharged emotional delivery.
~Richie Unterberger (allmusic.com)

Nice tribute video from youtube:

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Piece Of My Heart (Live In Germany) – 1968:

From Wikipedia:

Birth name Janis Lyn Joplin
Also known as Pearl, Mary Jane
Born January 19, 1943
Port Arthur, Texas,
United States
Died October 4, 1970 (aged 27)
Hollywood, California,
United States
Genres Blues rock, soul, psychedelic rock, acid rock, country, folk,hard rock, jazz blues
Occupations Singer, songwriter
Instruments Vocals, guitar, auto-harp, harmonica, piano, percussion
Years active 1962–1970
Labels Columbia
Associated acts Big Brother and the Holding Company
Kozmic Blues Band
Full Tilt Boogie Band
Grateful Dead

Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer-songwriter. Joplin first rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of the psychedelic-acid rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist with her more soulful and bluesy backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band. She was one of the more popular acts at the Monterey Pop Festival and later became one of the major attractions to the Woodstock festival and the Festival Express train tour.

Janis Joplin charted five singles, and other popular songs from her four-year career include “Down On Me”, “Bye, Bye Baby”, “Coo Coo”, “Summertime”, “Piece of My Heart”, “Turtle Blues”, “Ball ‘n’ Chain”, “Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)”, “Maybe”, “To Love Somebody”, “Kozmic Blues”, “Work Me, Lord”, “Move Over”, “Cry Baby”, “A Woman Left Lonely”, “Get It While You Can”, “My Baby”, “Trust Me”, “Mercedes Benz”, “One Night Stand”, “Raise Your Hand” and her only number one hit, “Me and Bobby McGee”.

Joplin was well-known for her performing abilities, and her fans referred to her stage presence as “electric”. At the height of her career, she was known as “The Queen of Rock and Roll” as well as “The Queen of Psychedelic Soul”, and became known as Pearl amongst her friends. She was also a painter, dancer and music arranger.

Rolling Stone magazine ranked Joplin number 46 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004, and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.

The party’s all over
Drink up and go home.
It’s too late to love her
And leave her alone.
~Kris Kristofferson (Epitaph (Black and Blue))

Joplin’s death in October 1970 at the age of 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just sixteen days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix. Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had “a devastatingly original voice”. Music columnist Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was “overpowering and deeply vulnerable”. Author Megan Terry claimed that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.

To Love Somebody – July 18, 1969 Janis Joplin in The Dick Cavett Show:

Album of the day – Pearl (1970):

janis joplin pearl

From allmusic – Steve Huey:

Janis Joplin’s second masterpiece (after Cheap Thrills), Pearl was designed as a showcase for her powerhouse vocals, stripping down the arrangements that had often previously cluttered her music or threatened to drown her out. Thanks also to a more consistent set of songs, the results are magnificent — given room to breathe, Joplin’s trademark rasp conveys an aching, desperate passion on funked-up, bluesy rockers, ballads both dramatic and tender, and her signature song, the posthumous number one hit “Me and Bobby McGee.” The unfinished “Buried Alive in the Blues” features no Joplin vocals — she was scheduled to record them on the day after she was found dead.
.. read more @ allmusic 

 

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