Who recorded it first

Baby, Please Don't Go

Not a Them original — a 1935 Bluebird 78 by Big Joe Williams

Them’s 1964 Decca single is so ferocious that it is routinely taken for the song’s point of origin. It is not: the record was cut in Chicago on 31 October 1935 by Big Joe Williams, billed as Joe Williams’ Washboard Blues Singers, and issued on Bluebird B-6200 backed with “Wild Cow Blues.” The composition is traditional — older than the disc — with Joe Williams credited on the label. Williams kept remaking it, for Bluebird in 1941 and Columbia in 1947, and it was the 1947 remake’s feel that most later versions followed.

The record

Who recorded it first

Record
“Baby Please Don't Go” b/w “Wild Cow Blues”
Billed as
Joe Williams' Washboard Blues Singers
Recorded
Chicago, 31 October 1935
Released
Bluebird B-6200, 10-inch shellac 78, December 1935

Released Issued as a 10-inch shellac 78 on Bluebird, catalogue B-6200, in December 1935, backed with “Wild Cow Blues.” Recorded in Chicago on 31 October 1935.

Charted Did not chart — Bluebird’s race-record series predated any national chart that would have tracked it.

Hear The 1935 Bluebird recording — washboard, one-string fiddle and Williams’ guitar, nothing like the 1964 record. www.youtube.com · Auto-generated “Provided to YouTube by Redeye Worldwide” upload on the Joe Williams’ Washboard Blues Singers Topic channel, billed under the exact 1935 group name. Duration 3:27 against the 3:25 MusicBrainz length for the 1935 Bluebird recording — a match, not a later re-cut.

How to check it

The 1935 single is catalogued as a 10-inch shellac 78 on Bluebird, catalogue B-6200, backed with “Wild Cow Blues” — see the release entry at MusicBrainz ↗.

The session details — Chicago, 31 October 1935, with one-string fiddle and washboard behind Williams — and the Them and AC/DC chronology are set out on Wikipedia ↗.

Williams’ own later remakes for Bluebird in 1941 and Columbia in 1947, and how the 1947 version shaped everything after it, are traced by uDiscover Music ↗.

Baby, Please Don't Go on Wikipedia — recordings and versions
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Fact-check

What people get wrong

Them’s 1964 single is treated as the song’s point of origin, and AC/DC’s 1975 version is often assumed to be a cover of Them. Both assumptions skip the record that actually started it.

The beliefCover

Them, 1964

Recorded in October 1964, released 6 November 1964 on Decca in the UK with “Gloria” on the flip; No. 10 in the UK. Adopted as the Ready Steady Go! theme, which is largely why it became the definitive version.

The originalFirst recording

Big Joe Williams, 1935

Recorded in Chicago on 31 October 1935 as Joe Williams’ Washboard Blues Singers, with Dad Tracy on one-string fiddle and Chasey “Kokomo” Collins on washboard; issued December 1935 on Bluebird B-6200 backed with “Wild Cow Blues.”

The writerComposition

Traditional; Joe Williams credited on the label

The song predates its first record. Williams took the label credit in 1935 and sometimes named his wife Bessie Mae Smith as co-writer; researchers trace it to the folk theme “Long John” and a melody related to “Alabamy Bound” (1925).

Them made the version you know. Big Joe Williams made the record.

Context

Why the 1964 record swallowed the 1935 one

A Bluebird race record from December 1935 was sold into a market that kept no charts and left almost no paper trail; a Decca single in November 1964 was sold into a Britain with a national singles chart and a weekly television show. Phil Solomon, Them’s manager, got the track adopted as the signature tune of Ready Steady Go!, and within two weeks it was at No. 19 on the UK Singles Chart, eventually peaking at No. 10 in February 1965. Repetition on television is a more powerful claim to authorship than a label credit nobody reads.

The other reason is that Them’s arrangement really is different in kind. The 1935 side is a washboard-and-fiddle country blues; the 1964 one is an electric riff played by a Belfast band with a teenage singer and a hired London session guitarist. Van Morrison sounds like he invented it, which is exactly the problem. AC/DC’s 1975 version, recorded at Albert Studios in Sydney and released on High Voltage, added a third layer of ownership on top.

The chronology, step by step
  • 31 October 1935 — Joe Williams records the song in Chicago with Dad Tracy on one-string fiddle and Chasey “Kokomo” Collins on washboard, billed as Joe Williams’ Washboard Blues Singers.
  • December 1935 — Bluebird issues it as a 10-inch shellac 78, catalogue B-6200, backed with “Wild Cow Blues.”
  • 1941 — Williams remakes it for Bluebird.
  • 1947 — Williams remakes it again for Columbia, this time with Sonny Boy Williamson on harmonica; this is the version whose feel most later covers follow.
  • October 1964 — Them record it in London; released 6 November 1964 on Decca in the UK, with “Gloria” on the B-side. It reaches No. 10 in the UK in February 1965.
  • 1965 — Parrot issues the single in the US, where it bubbles under at No. 102 on 24 April.
  • February 1975 — AC/DC’s version appears on High Voltage and, issued as a single alongside “Love Song,” reaches No. 10 in Australia in April 1975.
  • 1992 — Big Joe Williams is inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
Television made it Them’s. The label said Bluebird, 1935.

The original recording artist

Big Joe Williams

1903-1982 · Delta blues singer and guitarist · recorded the song first, Chicago, 1935

Joseph Lee Williams was born in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, in 1903 and played a self-modified nine-string guitar that earned him the epitaph “King of the 9 String Guitar.” Producer Lester Melrose signed him to Bluebird in 1935, and he stayed with the label for roughly a decade. He kept returning to this song — Bluebird again in 1941, Columbia in 1947 — and lived long enough to be rediscovered by the folk-blues revival, touring America, Europe and Japan into the 1970s. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1992.

Popularly credited as the original

Them

Belfast R&B group, formed 1964 · fronted by Van Morrison

Them formed in Belfast in April 1964 after Van Morrison answered an advertisement for a new R&B club at the Maritime Hotel. Their October 1964 recording — with Billy Harrison on lead guitar and session players including Jimmy Page on rhythm guitar, Andy White on drums and Phil Coulter on second keyboard — reached No. 10 in the UK. It is a genuinely great record, and the only error in the popular account of it is chronological: they were covering a Bluebird 78 that was already decades old.

The songwriter

Traditional

Traditional blues; Joe Williams credited on the Bluebird label

The song has no single identifiable author. It is a traditional blues that Williams first copyrighted and put on wax in 1935; blues researchers trace its lineage back to the old folk theme “Long John” and, per Paul Garon, a melody drawing on the 1925 popular song “Alabamy Bound.” Williams himself sometimes credited his wife, Bessie Mae Smith, as a co-writer. Even sympathetic accounts concede the song is considerably older than its first record.