Baby Please Don't Go

Big Joe Williams was a famously combative, wandering blues musician, best known for playing a heavily modified, homemade nine-string acoustic guitar. Touring Europe as part of the 1963 American Folk Blues Festival, Williams performed his signature 1935 composition, "Baby Please Don't Go." Playing his battered nine-string, he laid down a chaotic, heavily percussive rhythm that sounded like two guitars playing at once. His aggressive, shouting vocal style captivated the young European audiences in attendance, exposing future British rock musicians to the unvarnished reality of the Mississippi Delta sound.