Big Joe Williams

Big Joe Williams rebuilt his guitars. He took cheap six-string acoustics, strapped on electric pickups with duct tape, drilled extra holes in the headstock and bridge, and added strings to the first, second and fourth positions to make nine, often capoed at the first or second fret for a distinctive tuning. Born in Crawford in 1903, he reportedly made his first guitar at five and later joined the Rabbit's Foot Minstrels with Ethel Waters. He traveled by bus, train, car or on foot, and Michael Bloomfield noted that he, unlike others, did not keep a day job.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam D. Hamilton Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge — 10 mi
  A 48,000-acre refuge of bottomland forest and lakes in Noxubee, Oktibbeha and Winston counties, rebuilt from worn-out farmland, with red-cockaded woodpeckers, alligators and winter eagles.
• Tennessee Williams Welcome Center — 17 mi
  The 1875 Episcopal rectory where Tennessee Williams was born in 1911, moved to Main Street in the 1990s and now Columbus's welcome center and a National Literary Landmark.
• Waverley Mansion — 20 mi
  A National Historic Landmark mansion above the Tombigbee River, home of a plantation family that enslaved more than a hundred people, left empty for half a century before a family restored it.
• Howlin' Wolf Memorial and Blues Trail Marker — 21 mi
  A Mississippi Blues Trail marker and granite memorial on East Broad Street honoring Chester Burnett, who was born nearby in 1910 and became the Chicago blues giant Howlin' Wolf.

More markers nearby

• B.L. Moor High School — 5.7 mi
• Samuel Harding "Sam" Hairston — 11 mi
• Black Prairie Blues — 14 mi
• Oktibbeha County Blues — 15 mi