Robert Pete Williams - Robert Pete Williams '1971; 2015

Tracks list

       Robert Pete Williams made his first recordings in the Louisiana State
Penitentiary at Angola in 1959 while serving time for murder. Folklorist Dr.
Harry Oster was in search of work songs but found instead one of the most
original blues artists ever in Williams, who wailed and played guitar with
ominous passion and intensity in a visceral style outside the bounds of
traditional musical structure, rhyme and meter. Oster’s co-worker Richard
Allen noted, ‘He did unorthodox things. He’d be in three modes at
once.’ Williams often made up lyrics and improvised accompaniments
(picked rather than chorded) as he played, and his subject matter could be stark
and disturbing. In one of his best-known songs, ‘Grown So Ugly,’ he
looks in the mirror and moans, ‘I got so ugly I don’t even know
myself.’ The spontaneous nature of his music made it all but inimitable
and it was fitting that one of the few musicians to cover ‘Grown So
Ugly’ was an equally unconventional rock icon, Captain Beefheart.

Robert Williams, who added the nickname Pete as a teenager, was born in Zachary,
Louisiana, near Baton Rouge, on March 14, 1914. He played music at local
gatherings but made his living by farming and working at a dairy, a lumber yard
and other odd jobs until he shot a man, in self-defense, he claimed, in a
barroom altercation. He entered Angola in 1956 and earned a work parole in 1959
with the support of Oster and others (in a scenario reminiscent of Lead Belly).
After songs from his prison sessions appeared on the Louisiana Folklore Society
label, the burgeoning folk-blues revival was ready to welcome Williams. His
photo appeared in the national press along with news of an invitation to appear
at the 1960 Newport Folk Festival. But the parole board refused him permission
to travel, and he continued to work on a local farm until his time was served.

His long-anticipated Newport debut in 1964 was recorded by Vanguard, and during
the 1960s and ’70s he saw albums released on Folk Lyric, Arhoolie,
Bluesville, Takoma and several European labels. He performed widely at folk and
blues clubs and various festivals, endearing himself in the process to an
international audience who found him anything but murderous. His music made him
famous among a select segment of the blues world but not prosperous at home; his
jobs during his years of freedom included collecting and selling scrap iron.
Williams died on December 31, 1980, in Rosedale, Louisiana.



Tracklist:
1 01. Robert Pete Williams - Farm Blues (05:10)
1 02. Robert Pete Williams - Goodbye Slim Harpo (05:26)
1 03. Robert Pete Williams - Rub Me Until My Love Comes Down (03:41)
1 04. Robert Pete Williams - Freight Train Blues (05:11)
1 05. Robert Pete Williams - Got Me Way Down Here (05:27)
1 06. Robert Pete Williams - Matchbox Blues (03:43)
1 07. Robert Pete Williams - Railroad Blues (03:19)
1 08. Robert Pete Williams - Tombstone Blues (05:07)
1 09. Robert Pete Williams - Sweep My Floor (05:44)
1 10. Robert Pete Williams - You Used to Be a Sweet Cover Shaken but You Ain't
No More (04:49)
1 11. Robert Pete Williams - Vietnam Blues (03:25) 

Related artists