Chris,

I'll be glad to scan it -- when I find it again. That may be a while. I did scan it and sent it around a while ago but it was on another computer that gave up the ghost and that graphic got lost. But I will do it!

Now, Big Joe. He was one of a kind. I used to hear him at a place called the Blind Pig in Chicago and I did tail around after him in Chicago when I was about hobbit height. His 9-string was a regular 6-string with a metal strip of 3 extra tuners stuck onto the end of the tuning wood stock. One tuner was out there about an inch and a half off the neck and the string was guided to the right place by winding it around a screw head sticking up.

(The strings attached to a tail piece on that incarnation of Joe's guitar--but it would look different on occasion--if ya know what I mean.---Two ball-end strings to each single anchor hole. No idea how he tuned it except the last/bottom high 2 pairs were unison--like a 12-string guitar. The third pair may have been octaves. As I remember it, there were at least 2 pair of doubled stings--usually 3---but it was hard to say which of the third set of two would be doubled on any given day. Sometimes a string broke and was just ignored by Joe for the next week or two.)

The last I saw of Big Joe was in '64 before I headed East for the summer. I was asked by Bob Koester of Delmar Records (later Delmark Records) to, if I could, look into the Library Of Congress Archive Of Folk Song files to see what Blind Lemon Jefferson 78s they might have from the Broadway and Paramount Records labels and a few others. (They didn't have much in 78s back then, and they may not now. They weren't record collectors there.) ----------

I remember getting a postcard from Bob Koester while I was in D.C. saying something like, "Big Joe played a bar and a fracas broke out. Joe almost killed bluesman Jimmy Brown and left town pretty darn quick."---I don't remember Joe ever coming back to Chicago after that.

I carried memories of Joe's 9-string for a bunch of years. When my hands started going numb from what finally turned out to be MS, I began looking for ways to make picking easier. It seemed to me that a 9-string with single 6-5 and 4th (for clear bass tones) strings and doubled 1-2 and 3 would get more sound when strumming even though my picking was deteriorating. I added 3 banjo planetary gears to the center of the tuning stock of my Martin D-76 that I'd won in a raffle at the Old Town School Of Folk Music. It worked for a while--until I couldn't make chords any more. (I'd tried using an Alvarez factory made 9-string for a while but didn't like it at all.)

That nice Martin guitar cost me $3.00 in raffle tickets.

Somewhere else here at Mudcat I told about Big Joe Williams' set at the University Of Chicago Folk Festival in the early 60s. He sat down to play and it became pretty obvious that the crotch was worn out in his pants. Someone from the Folklore Society came out and whispered a few words to Joe. He left the stage and an un-announced intermission ensued.------------------ On returning to the stage, Joe sat down and did his whole set with about 25 or more safety pins holding his pants together--and when the spotlight hit those safety pins, it was like being at a dance with one of those big mirrored reflecting balls (no pun intended) shooting a light show everywhere.

It was just great!!! One of those things ya don't forget!!!!!!

Feel free to re-print any of these tales on your site. Lately, I don't get out much. And it's nice to still be making some musical waves in our music scene/pond.

Art Thieme