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Brown Burnett
Seeing his picture on the album stirred memories of when I was fortunate enough to spend a day with him just before his death 19 years ago near his East Mississippi home of Crawford. I was a writer for a Jackson, Ms. newspaper and a photographer friend of mine, Damian Morgan, told me how he could get me an interview with Joe and, of course, I jumped at the chance. I had seen Joe perform at the Old State Capitol Building in Jackson years before and it was one of those "I’ll-never-be-the-same-after-hearing-this" type of experiences. By then he was an icon and I remember his big voice filling that rotunda with power and conviction like no other bluesman I'd ever heard. So Damian and I set off one drizzly spring morning in 1982 for Crawford, not far from Columbus. We met Big Joe in a trailer park that was populated primarily by Big Joe’s relatives. He drove up in an old car and was dressed for the occasion – a white hat, bowtie and a suit. Old age and illness had withered away much of his once imposing frame but he proved to be a gracious host and a wonderful interview. We brought him a fifth of whiskey but he politely turned it away, saying his diabetes had kept him from drinking for some time now. But two relatives of his couldn't stand to see it go to waste and were more than glad to enjoy the gift in his stead. He asked if we were going to sell the interview and when we said "no", he told about how European writers and researchers would record him and he'd never see a dime from it. He didn't seem angry or bitter about it in the least. He just wished he had the money. His 'cousins' with our whisky kept getting more and more rowdy and you can hear them get louder and louder in the background on the tape. Big Joe, ever the performer, seemed to get great enjoyment out of telling us all stories. Occasionally a small child would run up the trailer steps and jump in his lap for a few minutes and then run back out the door and I don't think he even knew who some of the children were. We just let the tape run and in the process got a free-form interview that gets more remarkable with time. Once Joe got rolling, he wouldn't quit. He told fantastic stories of his travels, his music, his women (including a snake-woman - a story that still chills me to think about it), and he talked about his colleagues. Of Leadbelly, he said, ''He was a BAD man." Lightnin’ Hopkins? "He’d CUT you!" He told us that one of the all-time great blues piano players, Otis Spann, was his son – about how they both suddenly realized this on an airplane and both broke into sobbing tears. He talked about his lengthy mentor-protégé relationship with Bob Dylan and showed us pictures of them embracing backstage at a recent Dylan concert, referring to him as "bobbydylan." He expressed great sadness at the tragic death of another protégé Mike Bloomfield. By the way, Bloomfield wrote a book about his travels with Big Joe that is a rare jewel if you run upon it. There was much laughter and the old bluesman came more and more to life with each story. When asked about what he was proudest of in his career, he quickly said, "Two things. "ONE - that I never had a JOB in my life. I’ve only played music and TWO - that I’m NOT from the Delta. People keep saying I’m from the Delta and that ain’t right. The Delta’s in WEST Mississippi. I’m from here in EAST Mississippi! I ain’t no Delta Bluesman." Then came the inevitable question – about his guitar – a NINE-STRING guitar that became his trademark. He pulled it from a battered case and showed it to us. It was one strange-looking instrument. He had installed his own keys in his own way, with 3 on each side and 3 on the top of the guitar. Why would he do such a bizarre thing? Because he could. "I wanted to have my own sound so nobody could ever copy me so I came up with this." And no one probably ever will copy that. Then it was time to ask him to play and he resisted mightily and despite the pleas of about 10 people who had gathered in the trailer and outside the door in the drizzling rain. When one of the children begged him, he gave in. He played 2 classics, "Highway 49" and "Baby, Please Don’t Go" and one other one that I didn’t recognize. He was slow getting cranked up but when he did, he played with the strength and inspiration of a man half his age. And I still have it on tape. A magic moment. It was getting dark, Joe said he had a `date’ so everyone was leaving. He walked us to our car, told us goodbye, said he enjoyed the day and I believe the old man meant it. I can still see him sweating and flailing away on that old 9-string. We drove away stunned by the events and what we had just seen and heard. It wasn’t long after that that I picked up a New York Times and saw the Big Joe Williams had died – of natural causes. They estimated him to have been in his 80’s. And the story was on the front page. I still have a picture of me and Big Joe standing in front of his car, his arm around my shoulders grinning at the camera. And when I get tired of hearing cheap imitators of blues, I pull out that picture, listen to that tape and remember that spring afternoon with Big Joe Williams. The real deal. |
