Baby Please Don't Go

Blues great Big Joe Williams is credited with writing this song, but it was developed from a folk song titled "Long John," which was recorded in 1934 by John and Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress. That recording captures the song being sung by black prisoners working Darrington State Prison Farm in Texas. It was a popular tune there because "Long John" was about an escaped prisoner on the run from authorities. Williams changed the song, but he kept the prison theme, with lines like, "I believe there's a man done gone to the country farm, with a long chain on."

Lyrically, this song works up a well-worn blues cliché: His baby is leaving, and he's desperately trying to get her to stay. She's planning to leave on the midnight train, but this one is going to New Orleans, not Georgia.

Lester Melrose recorded Williams in Chicago for Bluebird Records. The credits on the single identify the band as Joe Williams' Washboard Blues Singers. Chasey "Kokomo" Collins played washboard and Dad Tracy played fiddle on this recording. Because of patchy record-keeping, historians aren't sure how many copies of the song sold. Whatever the number, it was enough to launch a successful career for Williams and to become one of the most widely covered and imitated songs in blues history.