this belongs in a fucking museum. this belongs in our national archives. Big Joe is a pioneer and a legend if there ever was one. having this footage is remarkable. 9-string blues on a homemade guitar with homemade electronics and amplification.
@perrynay153310 ай бұрын
I was trying to figure it out!
@davisworth51149 ай бұрын
This is footage was recorded in 1971 at the University of Washington in Seattle, the recordings were made for the Seattle Folklore Society, which produced the largest archive of original bluesmen. This was during a time that the blues revival, started by young white men looking for the artists who made race records in the 20s and 30s, re-discovered these artists and booked them on tours in colleges and music clubs across America. Black people were not interested in these concerts and considered the blues passe, so it was whites that kept the blacks mans' art alive. I drove Big Joe to this session, it was difficult for a lot of the artists to perform in a sterile setting with a bunch of blues nuts watching passively. Joe was an intense, smart, powerful person and a force of nature, he was the most active of the original bluesmen and performed consistently from the 1930s to 1980. RIP Big Joe.
@EastCoastDave2 жыл бұрын
I love the sound of an amped acoustic guitar, raw and distinct tone like nothing else. Lightnin Hopkins and Elmore James did it too. As great as they were, when you make your own 9 string and do it, it's a whole other level!
@Contact_Info5 жыл бұрын
This guy is a machine, made his own 9 string. Look at the tuners on the top of headstock. Ok, Big Joe, I see how you do it. Amplified it too.
@larryberger48187 жыл бұрын
I used to tell him, "you're fuckin' with the rhythm Joe, and he was so sweet. He'd just look at his glass and say, baby please don't go. I poured him another.
@OthO675 жыл бұрын
Said the Dave and Phil Alvin.
@OthO675 жыл бұрын
+Jawknee Rustle ^Omit the.^
@rievans577 ай бұрын
One of the fathers of modern music.
@deadfootdave234310 жыл бұрын
Classic delta blues... A true artist. Many other artists have covered his songs, but have not duplicated his passion or his unique style. LOVE IT!!! Thank you for posting & keeping the art alive... Love, Peace and Chicken Grease! -Deadfoot Dave
@charlesberger66183 жыл бұрын
Yeah, boy howdy!
@Mountainwahoo12 жыл бұрын
I could listen to this all day
@patrickmcgee46985 жыл бұрын
Great Bluesman right here ,how the hell did any one person give Thumbs down is beyond me..
@JODYCARROLL11 жыл бұрын
When Joe was in a good session he was amazing. His buddies Tommy McLennan & Robert Petway had a similar minimal juke joint style that can really warp tour world if you have big ears. Check out Joe's early records from the 40's when he was in his prime. Stand guitar players who stick to the age old way of playing with only a pick ignore the power of holding the bass and melody going at the same time. Nothing wrong with using a capo if you move it.
@thomasjohansson320810 жыл бұрын
My very first live blues experience back in '68 was this man - awesome (Chicago Blues in the Concert Hall, Gothenburg)
@Voltaire19554 жыл бұрын
Watching and listening to Big Joe after a stop in Seattle where I purchased an ex rare (perhaps one of a kind) KGN-12 from one of the top country blues artists of our time, Steve James-who insisted I listen to more Big Joe; and here I am. It don't have to look pretty (guitars) to play the blues.
@dennymk64545 жыл бұрын
got a real blues sampler album in the 70's. big joe was on it, as were many other greats. this is the real blues. love his style and 9 string one of a kind guitar. want to learn the blues, play your heart out every day and you'll get it in time.
@davisworth51149 ай бұрын
Just listen to the right guys like Big Joe, Skip James, Son House, Lightnin' Hopkins etc.
@zenmeister4517 жыл бұрын
That is the funkiest guitar I've ever seen! It's a wonder he can even get to the strings with all that tape, and those wires stickin' out everywhere. It just proves that all you need is strong fingers, and an indomitable will to play great music. My first guitar was a Silvertone; I bought it from Sears back when I was about 13 or 14 years old. I took it to Africa with me, but the humidity absolutely wrecked it. GREAT MUSIC!!!
@larryberger48186 жыл бұрын
It was. I'm sure he put it together in some southern motel somewhere. Knobs everywhere. I enjoyed Joe in my bar in Chicago back in the sixties.
@DubMartin4 жыл бұрын
Larry Berger, Just wondering which bar in Chicago? I first met Joe in The Fickle Pickle (State St. near Dearborn) in 1963. Bob Koester (Delmark Records) and Mike Bloomfield ran concert jams on Tuesday nights and featured Joe along with Yank Rachell, Little Brother Montgomery, Sunnyland Slim, Sleepy John Estes, et al. I was there every Tuesday night sitting in the front row trying to figure out what they were doing. Wonderful memories.
@lastknowngood05 жыл бұрын
Big Joe is an awesome Blues Boss!
@p0k7lm6 жыл бұрын
Big Joe a real man that sings from real life experiences a great musician here ! Also hear his Christmas Blues song ! lots of todays music is driven by big business , cooker cutter music with mind directing thinking in it for their advantage.
@ethanhammond76156 жыл бұрын
I love these blues so much as i do my woman. Expect I don't listen to my woman!
@theripper32944 жыл бұрын
@@detroitfunk313 You up shut fuck
@hacgarimman96603 жыл бұрын
It’s a blues joke folks.
@ethanhammond76153 жыл бұрын
@@theripper3294 let that man be, for us all my friend.the sense I don't Is point of my spoken word
@ethanhammond76152 жыл бұрын
Comment is priceless
@prutissbartlow88354 жыл бұрын
Love....1#.... That note......hunting.... Jus when u the best... " Little annie may...." .. Style..robert johnson.... son house. .fred mcdowell.. Strings b talkin... John lee hooker..boogie blues.
@liveinkindnesslivewi8 жыл бұрын
no wonder I always wondered why his guitar sounded kinda funky
@Deltoidicus4 жыл бұрын
gffff looks kinda funky too lol
@AnthonyMonaghan5 жыл бұрын
Thurston Moore would love the shit out of this guitar! What a performance and what a completely unique sound. Unearthly!
@howardoneill3111 жыл бұрын
Absolute genius
@bornfedslaughter11 жыл бұрын
how the hell did you guys get all this footage..wow
@Aqli-fa5 жыл бұрын
came here for djent not disappointed
@oldtimetinfoilhatwearer5 жыл бұрын
Blues is way heavier than metal if you're on the right drugs :D
@blanebryant67424 жыл бұрын
TONE.
@Odeveldfoto7 жыл бұрын
Thanks for sharing!!!!!!!!!!!!
@johnellis9352 Жыл бұрын
He's my favorite
@charlieleger111 ай бұрын
Awesome
@guitarded7113 жыл бұрын
@SrGreeneyed - it is from the DVD "Fred McDowell & Big Joe Williams - Masters of the Country Blues" from a GREAT series of DVDs on Yazoo/Shanachie.
@smheron19 жыл бұрын
No one played a 9-string quite like Big Joe.
@user-us4nr6gv7f7 жыл бұрын
Well, when you're really the ONLY one doing it how can you not stand out as the example? Haha.
@GreenManalishiUSA3 жыл бұрын
On the first Jethro Tull album, Mick Abrahams is credited with playing the 9-string guitar , "which is a 12-string guitar with three strings missing (or something).". Perhaps it was a nod to the influence of Big Joe Williams (or something).
@beatricefarmer67539 жыл бұрын
"Yes" okay!
@juniortwunai95283 жыл бұрын
PAZ AMOR E GALO . Bit Joe e muito bom escutar o som desse Cara .
@FolkSeattle13 жыл бұрын
@Gerrymusicteacher I checked out your channel. Good job! Keep at it and don't ever give up!
@garyives12182 жыл бұрын
100 years........Baby Please Don't Go
@clawhammer7045 ай бұрын
He took a three on a side plate of tuning machines and added them to the top of the headstock.
@jeffnaugle234011 жыл бұрын
he has extra tuning pegs
@peepas26336 жыл бұрын
extra strings too
@Deltoidicus4 жыл бұрын
jeff naugle hence the nickname “King of the Nine-String Guitar”
@DubMartin4 жыл бұрын
jeff naugle, Joe preferred guitars that had a point at the end of the headstock. He would drill a single hole through the tip of the headstock and add three tuning pegs built on a strip by pushing the center peg up through the hole and letting the other two pegs rest against the outside edge of the headstock. The tension of the strings held the peg strip in place. It always looked like there were no screws holding it but he may have drilled new screw holes in the strip to help hold it in place.
@danmurphy47245 жыл бұрын
This is how a guitar should played.... Hu?
@k.m.slattery6263 Жыл бұрын
When and where was this great video made❤?😊
@davisworth51149 ай бұрын
Seattle 1971 by Seattle Folklore Society.
@krisscanlon40516 ай бұрын
Man his amplified 9 string beats mine!
@salomao290411 жыл бұрын
raridade
@Anderson-qw7jw8 жыл бұрын
Somzera
@marklandgraf163010 жыл бұрын
Great stuff! For sure John lee Hooker, Them, Dylan were influenced by Joe!
@hacgarimman96603 жыл бұрын
Who is them?
@abrigospardos Жыл бұрын
@@hacgarimman9660 Them was the name of a Northern Irish rock band formed by singer Van Morrison in 1964. They released four hit songs in the 60s ("Gloria"; "Baby Please Don't Go": "Here Comes The Night" and "Mystic Eyes"). Check them out!
@sheilabarron55323 жыл бұрын
Oh Yes Digging them strings already YesYesYes👋👋👋👋✌💙
@SuperOlds884 жыл бұрын
I wonder how many people offered to internally route his pickup wires? If BIg Joe made that guitar you would think he would of had a drill bit to do that since he or somebody attached the additional tuning machines. Probably pulled out a knife when anybody got near his guitar.
@DubMartin4 жыл бұрын
Lightnin Hopkins, No one would have made that offer. The pickup Joe used was a DeArmond Guitar Mike [sic] known colloquially as the “monkey on a stick.” He used it on every guitar I saw him play. It was designed to be placed on any guitar without altering the guitar. imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/924/b7Gwuy.jpg
@ethanhammond76153 жыл бұрын
Folkmemphis
@Gerrymusicteacher13 жыл бұрын
it shows one of the roots of where rock came from. The sound is appealing, but doesnt change much from song to song. He cannot play in other keys without retuning. He only has a few moves that he reuses all the time. Just like alot of pop music today. I like it but could not listen to only that.
@rev.jimjonesandthekool-aid44884 жыл бұрын
Each song was completely different. Autism is a spectrum.
@ethanhammond76156 жыл бұрын
So glad I found this "folkseattle" channel. Their videos are priceless. I mean Id rather it be named "FolkMemphis", "FolkBirmingham", "FolkClarksdale something southern you know.
@davisworth51142 жыл бұрын
I was a concert promoter for the Seattle Folklore Society and drove Big Joe to the studio where this was recorded. This was a group filled with killer musicians and we learned from the greats. We were so blessed to be around so many great artists and fascinating people.
@ethanhammond76152 жыл бұрын
@@davisworth5114 thanks for the reply. Not stupid, just stating my opinion as I see it
@k.m.slattery6263 Жыл бұрын
When and where was this?😊
@Khultan11 жыл бұрын
♪♪♪♪♥▼♥♪♪♪♪
@dbadagna4 жыл бұрын
Basic information to add to the video description above: in which city/country/year this film was made.
@davisworth51144 жыл бұрын
Seattle 1971 I drove Joe to the studio on UW campus Joe never stopped being a bluesman.
@iicjguitar04163 жыл бұрын
@@davisworth5114 how was Joe in person? From what i read on Michael Bloomfield’s book about him, he was a colorful character.
@davisworth51142 жыл бұрын
@@iicjguitar0416 He was very friendly but gruff and intense, he was still living the bluesmans' life, he was rough and wanted a piss jar for his room. We took him for a haircut, he was looking for romance. He was powerful and the drive in his music shows that.
@PeterSchuett Жыл бұрын
I saw him live two times in Hamburg/Germany in the early 1970ies. The first concert, in Malersaal, had to stopped by the police, as he and the audience were not willing to come to an end … The second, a few month later at the Logo club, he was singing (at the age of 73) the song “Good morning little school girl” with the line “Tell your mama and your pa, I’m a little schoolboy, too” … at his age? I stated laughing. He stopped, looked at me (sitting at a table right in front the stage), saw me smiling, started smiling too, stopped the song and played a different one. Great moments I will never forget. And I still like his singing and very special guitar sound. I also own a copy of Mike Bloomfield’s great booklet about Big Joe - a true eye opener about real Blues live beyond romantics.
@steinsteel12 жыл бұрын
04:35
@bluto2125 жыл бұрын
Can someone tell me the history behind this series of videos.
@davisworth51144 жыл бұрын
From the vaults of The Seattle folklore Society.
@johnhedin8110 Жыл бұрын
big koe
@dominicflats769210 жыл бұрын
1o string
@Deltoidicus4 жыл бұрын
dominic flats 9
@dominicflats769210 жыл бұрын
lotta white people here in 2014?
@Contact_Info5 жыл бұрын
yes, we are and we whites are ok to like things in abundance, sir
@lastknowngood05 жыл бұрын
It is written that we all walked out of Africa Sir. ;-))
@rev.jimjonesandthekool-aid44884 жыл бұрын
@@lastknowngood0 the out of afrikaans hypothesis has since been disproved. In fact new archaeological evidence show white Europeans as early as 12,000 years ago, returned to Africa as cro magnum was just leaving. Whites predate black Africans by 6 thousand years.
@davisworth51149 ай бұрын
White people saved the blues from extinction and I am proud to say I was one of them, it is a national scandal that black kids don't know the great southern bluesmen.
@oldbladderhorn9493 жыл бұрын
he sure can make that guitar talk real nice you'd think he'd have got a regular 12 string and then convert it to a nine he must have made some big money along the way to maybe get afford a nice Guild or Martin. or was he living from gig to gig i don't know his history is he just another blues dude that got turned over by his agent big time. or did he just look the part and put on an act and an image a nasty boozy blues brother persona.
@oldbladderhorn9492 жыл бұрын
@@davisworth5114 Dai were you coming from you need to leave the booze alone because your sure talking out your fat arse. and as for immature take a good long look in the mirror if you want to see childish immature, as that would be the very first place to look, in your case. as for guitar styles their on going, as one generation pilfers from the technique acquired by the previous generation. And so on and on into the future. there is no patent pending on any one style but the very best can breath life and feeling into a tune and put into the mind (of the listener) those far off places, that they might never see or those adult situations of men and women you'd never want to see happen to yourself or of yours. maybe if you get off your very high horse and read what i didn't say but was nevertheless implied which was left for your own inner thinking to figure. it.... might have flown over your small minded head.... But as you said i'm immature and you, you wise and wizened sage that you are know so much more than this poor lonely stranger here. maybe if i'd put a lot more punctuation you might have seen where i was coming from. I am not an American by the way but where i live we have our own ancient and rustic melody's and tunes of equal hardships. suffered by the regular ordinary folk of yesteryear and remembered and passed down in songs, to us folk here today. there was slavery here for a very very long period. a thousands or more years it was here in these isles before the romans conquered our tribes. And when they fucked off back to Rome it was still here. So lot of these old tunes are of equal worth if not better than some of the old blues. for me i think it's got something to do with he (Joe) being human and a real poet at heart as i imagine him to be So I do wonder if mr Williams was a family man. just a thought. (I have met musicians who thought they where famous, they were to their fans) but not to me. their just people with the strangest of job's and what you see on the stage is not who they really are. you have to take the mask off once in a blued moon aye? defrock them and see past the fetish of the image. it's not something i'd wish to be myself i am so very lucky. I have no musical talent. but if, i sometime in the future decide to pick up some rocks and bang them together, i'll put up a video so as you can see my merry jamboree and you can say how very immature it was of me. (I'm getting board with this rant) so feel free to comment on immature v ignorance as i'm sure you are very well versed in both oh self appointed Guru in your bed room ashram hermitage image of a bald fat white guy. as for me my foot is red and swollen with the gout and writing this crap has helped somewhat took my mind off the excruciating pain and fever, think I'll try and get some rest it's going to be a trial... hate gout hate it just as your getting settled you need to use the bog it just isn't fare.. any oh Dai keep your foot out your mouth there's a good lad
@davisworth51149 ай бұрын
Number one, any guitar that has a buzzing string will set a drone and add to the texture, you don't need a spendy guitar to play blues, just one that is playable and sounds good, money doesn't give you a good guitar. I have a couple dozen sweet electrics but the best is a Peavey Predator I got for 80 bucks. Number two, if you play slide guitar, never change the strings, number three you are totally disrespectful, Big Joe didn't take lessons, HE INVENTED THIS STYLE OF PLAYING.