Willie Baker
Willie Baker was an American Piedmont blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He recorded eight tracks, playing a twelve-string guitar to back his own strong vocals. All of his recordings took place in January and March 1929 in Richmond, Indiana, United States. Details of his life outside of his recording career are sketchy. Biography It is generally supposed that Baker was born in Pierce County, Georgia, United States, although little is known of his upbringing. One local peculiarity of the area around Atlanta, Georgia, was the number of twelve-string guitar players that emerged in the 1920s. It is an unusual primary instrument for blues musicians to use; and yet the first recording of a male country blues singer was undertaken by a twelve-string guitarist, Ed Andrews, who recorded for Okeh Records in Atlanta in early 1924. Others who appeared and recorded in the next few years from that same general location, included Willie Baker, Blind Willie McTell, Barbecue Bob, Charley Lincoln, Julius Daniels, and George Carter. The brothers Barbecue Bob (Robert Hicks) and Charley Lincoln (Charlie Hicks), plus Curley Weaver were all taught to play by Curley's mother, Savannah "Dip" Shepard Weaver, a well-respected pianist and guitarist. The manner of Baker's open-tuned guitar work, often using a slide, and style of singing, allied him with the Hicks brothers, although it is pure speculation whether they were acquainted with each other. Baker was remembered as playing around Patterson, Georgia, and it is possible that he saw Robert Hicks play in a medicine show in Waycross, Georgia. What is certain is that Baker recorded a number of sides, probably eight, in January and March 1929 in Richmond, Indiana for Gennett Records. Baker's lyrics often used common blues parlance of the time. His song "Crooked Woman Blues" contained the lines "It's comin' a time, these women won't need no men / They'll find a wash job, an' money come rollin' in". The term 'wash job' related to the employment of washerwoman. In "Weak-Minded Woman", Baker used the lines "A weak-minded woman will let a rounder tear her down / An' when she get in trouble that rounder can't be found". Weak-minded was a derivative of the standard English sense of lacking in strength of purpose, being used as susceptible to loose sexual morals. As 'weak mind', the idiom survived in the speech of black youths up to the 1970s. In the same song, Baker's use of the term 'take' was meant to denote 'to be seized by, or have an attack of something' as described in the lyrics "Woman take the blues, she gonna buy her paper an' read / Man take them blues he gonna catch a train an' leave". Whereas in "No No Blues", Baker sang "I'm long and tall, like a cannon ball / Take a long-tall man, make a kid gal, make a kid gal squall". 'Long and tall' was often used in blues songs, but is now redundant in everyday speech. In the same song, Baker also used the