Mississippi Blues Trail Marker For Big Joe Williams in Crawford, Mississippi

Big Joe Williams wrote the song BABY PLEASE DONT GO. It was his signature song and he does it best. But the list of covers by other musicians seems endless. Here is some info on the song and those who have recorded it.

Baby, Please Don't Go
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Baby, Please Don't Go"
Single by Joe Williams' Washboard Blues Singers
B-side "Wild Cow Blues"
Released 1935
Format Vinyl record
Recorded October 31, 1935
Genre Blues
Label Bluebird Records B6200
Producer Lester Melrose
"Baby, Please Don't Go"
Single by Big Joe Williams
B-side "Wild Cow Moan"
Released 1945
Format Vinyl record
Recorded July 22, 1945
Genre Blues
Length 3:24
Label Columbia Records
"Baby, Please Don't Go"

Single by Them
A-side "Baby, Please Don't Go" (Williams)
B-side "Gloria" (Morrison)
Released November 1964
Genre Blues rock, garage rock
Length 2:38
Label Decca Records (UK), Parrot Records (USA)
Writer(s) Van Morrison, Big Joe Williams
Them singles chronology
"One Two Brown Eyes"
(1964) "Baby, Please Don't Go"
(1964) "Gloria"
(1965)

"Baby, Please Don't Go"
Song by AC/DC
from the album High Voltage

Released February 17, 1975
Recorded September 1974
Genre Hard rock, blues rock
Length 4:50
Label Albert Productions
Writer Big Joe Williams
Producer Harry Vanda, George Young
High Voltage track listing
"Baby, Please Don't Go"
(1) "She's Got Balls"
(2)

"Baby, Please Don't Go"
Song by AC/DC
from the album '74 Jailbreak

Released October 1984
'74 Jailbreak track listing
"Soul Stripper"
(4) "Baby, Please Don't Go"
(5)

"Baby, Please Don't Go"

Single by Aerosmith
from the album Honkin' on Bobo
Released 2004
Format CD, vinyl
Recorded 2003
Genre Hard rock, blues rock
Length 3:23
Label Columbia
Producer Jack Douglas, Marti Frederiksen, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry
Aerosmith singles chronology
"Girls of Summer"
(2002) "Baby, Please Don't Go"
(2004) "Devil's Got a New Disguise"
(2006)


"Baby, Please Don't Go" is a blues song first recorded by Big Joe Williams in 1935. It is related to a group of early 20th century blues and work songs that include "Alabama Bound", "Another Man Done Gone", and "Don't Leave Me Here", and "Turn Your Lamp Down Low".

It has become a blues and rock standard, and has been recorded by many artists (see list below)

Versions
1935
The original single by Joe Williams' Washboard Blues Singers can be heard on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, Vol. 4 (Revenant, 2000).

1941 Personnel
Big Joe Williams - Guitar, Vocals
Sonny Boy Williamson I - Harp[citation needed]
Ransom Knowling - Double Bass
Judge Riley - Drums
Notable cover versions
Van Morrison and Them
The band Them fronted by Van Morrison, released "Baby, Please Don't Go" as the A side of a single in late 1964. Boosted by the B side, a ditty entitled "Gloria", the single became their first hit, reaching #10 on the UK Singles Chart. This version is included on the double CD compilation The Story of Them Featuring Van Morrison, Van Morrison's 1990s greatest hits album, The Best of Van Morrison and various compilations of Morrison's work. Rhythm guitar was contributed by a then little-known Jimmy Page, however he did not play the lead guitar on the track.[1]

John Lee Hooker's posthumously released DVD Come See About Me includes a 1992 performance where Hooker plays "Baby, Please Don't Go" on his guitar while sitting on a dock. He is accompanied on harmonica by Them's Van Morrison.

Amboy Dukes / Ted Nugent
Since it was The Amboy Dukes' debut single, former Dukes guitarist Ted Nugent has covered the song in live performances throughout his career.

The single is included on the 1967 album The Amboy Dukes, and also appears on the Nuggets compilation. A live version from Nugent's 1978 Double Live Gonzo! is included on his greatest hits collections Great Gonzos! and The Ultimate Ted Nugent.

Budgie
Welsh band Budgie recorded this song on their 1973 album Never Turn Your Back on a Friend, with the original line-up of Burke Shelly on bass and vocals, Tony Bourge on Guitar and Ray Philips on drums.

AC/DC
AC/DC recorded a version for their 1975 Australia-only album High Voltage; it was released internationally in 1984 on their compilation EP '74 Jailbreak. The video, as released on Family Jewels, was recorded on the Australian music program "Countdown", and features Bon Scott in drag, singing over a studio-recorded backing track. Scott performed the song live with AC/DC in various concerts until his death in 1980.

Aerosmith
Aerosmith released a version of "Baby, Please Don't Go" on their blues cover album, Honkin' on Bobo in 2004. It was the only single from the album, and hit #7 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Since its release, it has been a staple song in the band's concert performances. As it followed a period in the 1990s and early 2000s when the band charted with several power ballads, this recording is considered a return to hard rock music for Aerosmith.[citation needed]

Selective list of recorded versions
1935 Big Joe Williams (Bluebird records), also re-recorded in 1941
1936 Tampa Kid (Decca records)
1936 Sam Montgomery (ARC records)
1939 Leonard 'Baby Doo' Caston
1957 Billy Lee Riley & his Little Green Men (Sun Records)
1960 Mance Lipscomb (Arhoolie)
1961 Pink Anderson
1962 Mose Allison (Atlantic)(Rhino)
1962 Bob Dylan, officially released 2005 as a download only
1964 Them (Decca UK)
1966 The Ballroom, produced by Curt Boettcher
1966 Los Ovnis (Mexican band) (Spanish version named "El Ovni")
1967 Amboy Dukes
1969 Alvin Lee, Played live at Woodstock
1972 Gary Glitter, "Glitter" album.
1973 Budgie (MCA)
1974 AC/DC (Alberts/EMI)
1984 Restless
1991 Webb Wilder
2004 Aerosmith
Zakk Wylde's Pride & Glory
Paul Butterfield
The Doors
Tony Joe White
Beausoleil
Lightnin' Hopkins
Al Kooper
John Mellencamp
MC5
Van Morrison
Ted Nugent
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Paul Revere & the Raiders
Taste
Muddy Waters
The Animals
Bill Wyman
John Lee Hooker
Mississippi Fred McDowell
The Tragically Hip (live version found on the popular Bootleg Roxy Revisited)
Rising Storm
Los Suaves (live version found on "¿Hay alguien ahí?" album)





Click on the above two photos to enlarge them and make it easier to read them.
Also go to msbluestrail.org see an interactive map and picture of the marker.

Sonny Boy Williamson DOWN AND OUT BLUES on Checker Records

Kitty Wells Lonely Street

When I was in college we had some records around the fraternity house. This being in 1959 in Mississippi there were some blues records and there were some hard core old time honky tonk records. It was there I found LONELY STREET by Kitty Wells on Decca and also Luke the Drifter by Hank Williams on a nice MGM 10 inch LP. (see my Luke the Drifter post below.)
The cover of LONELY STREET shown above on the EP on Decca was the original cover art on the Decca LP as well.
Also in 1959 I first heard the Sonny Boy Williamson LP shown in the post above this one. Hank Williams as Luke The Drifter, Kitty Wells singing Lonely Street and Sonny Boy Williamson Don't Start Me Talkin'. Somebody around that frat house had some good taste in music.

Luke The Drifter Hank Williams

These songs by Hank Williams as Luke The Drifter are among my all time favorites.

Jimmie Rodgers Meets The Carter Family

Click to enlarge the video.

Some Choice Jimmie Rodgers Father of Country Music From Meridian Mississippi

Click on the above videos to enlarge them and go to Youtube to find more of the Singing Brakeman Jimmie Rodgers. If you see him in a picture showing him with his two thumbs up that means in railroad sign language: "Take A Break".

Jimmie Rodgers on the Mississippi Blues Trail Meridian Mississippi

Click on the above photo to enlarge the picture.


Jimmie Rodgers
Jimmie Rodgers - Meridian
Jimmie Rodgers (1897 – 1933) is widely known as the "father of country music," but blues was a prominent element of his music. The influence of his famous "blue yodels" can be heard in the music of Mississippi blues artists including Howlin' Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt, Tommy Johnson, and the Mississippi Sheiks. His many songs include the autobiographical "T.B. Blues," which addressed the tuberculosis that eventually took his life.

Jimmie Rodgers and The Blues Meridian native Jimmie Rodgers (1897-1933) was the first major star of country music and introduced the blues to a far wider audience than any other artist of his time, black or white. He was not the first white performer to interpret the blues, but he was the most popular, establishing the blues as a foundation of country music.

More than a third of Rodgers’s recordings were blues, which he encountered as a young man while working as a railway brakeman and traveling musician. In 1927 he recorded the song "Blue Yodel" that sold over a million copies and earned Rodgers the nickname "The Blue Yodeler." His distinctive style mixed blues, European yodeling, and African American falsetto singing traditions. Before Rodgers, several African Americans, notably Charles Anderson, had specialized in yodeling, and in 1923 blues singers Bessie Smith and Sara Martin recorded Clarence Williams’s song, "Yodeling Blues."

Although most of Rodgers’s songs were original, some of his most popular were versions of blues classics. "Frankie and Johnnie" was an African American ballad about a murder in St. Louis in 1899, and blues artists including Jim Jackson from Hernando, Mississippi, had made earlier recordings of "In the Jailhouse Now." Rodgers employed African American musicians in the studio, including Louis Armstrong, who, along with his pianist wife Lil, backed Rodgers on "Blue Yodel No. 9." Other sessions featured blues guitarist Clifford Gibson and the Louisville Jug Band.

In early 1929 Rodgers toured Mississippi with a vaudeville show that included blues singer Eva Thomas. Bluesmen who claimed to have met, traveled, or performed with Rodgers included Hammie Nixon, Rubin Lacy, and Houston Stackhouse, who recalled that he and Robert Nighthawk accompanied Rodgers in a show at the Edwards Hotel in Jackson (c. 1931). Rodgers’s influence on African American musicians from Mississippi is evident in recordings by the Mississippi Sheiks, Tommy Johnson, Furry Lewis, Scott Dunbar, and Mississippi John Hurt, whose song "Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me" was based on Rodgers’s "Waiting For A Train." Howlin’ Wolf attributed his distinctive singing style to Rodgers, explaining, "I couldn’t do no yodelin’, so I turned to howlin’. And it’s done me just fine."

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