Performance · Other credits

Big Joe Williams

American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter

United States • 1903-10-16 – 1982-12-17

Big Joe Williams is credited on 1,807 releases across 492 albums tracked on Gatefold, active 1952–2025 — the collector-built map of who actually made the music.

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Photo of Big Joe Williams

1,807

Pressings credited

492

Albums

8

Decades active

426

In collections

Biography

Joseph Lee 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 five decades, he recorded the songs "Baby, Please Don't Go", "Crawlin' King Snake", and "Peach Orchard Mama", among many others, for various record labels. 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.

Bio from Wikipedia

Credited work

1,807 releases · 492 albums · active 1952–2025

  • Performance · 3,002
  • Other credits · 59
  • Engineering · 4

Studios: Albert Studios · CBS Studios, New York · Malaco Studios · Rockfield Studios

Discography

Records they worked on — most-collected first.

Frequent collaborators

Around the web

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