In 1955, Chicago blues trailblazer Little Walter delivered one of the most significant specimens of postwar blues with his R&B hit “My Babe”.  The original recording for Chess Records captured a stripped down arrangement, resulting in a fresh upbeat, blues-based sound, with distorted harmonica out front—what would become a hallmark of the new Chicago electric blues movement of the mid-1950’s.  

Like many early blues standards, “My Babe” traces its melodic and lyrical genesis from an old black spiritual, “This Train (Is Bound For Glory),” which was likely composed in the mid- to late-1800’s. First recorded in 1922 by the Florida Normal and Industrial Institute Quartette, the song was popular among black churches during the 1920’s and achieved widespread popularity in the mid-1930’s.  Smithsonian Institute folklorists John and Alan Lomax helped introduce the tune to broader audiences through their 1933 field recording of black inmate Walter McDonald singing the song at the Parchman Farm Mississippi state penitentiary. Gospel queen Sister Rosetta Tharpe's 1939 version of “This Train” was perhaps its best-known, featuring innovative electric guitar picking. The song served as the title of Woody Guthrie’s 1943 autobiography, and Bruce Springsteen famously reworked the song as “Land of Hope and Dreams” (2001 and 2012). 

Following Ray Charles’ pioneering (and controversial) rewrite of a spiritual into a secular R&B chart-topper (“I’ve Got a Woman”, 1955), the prolific musician-songwriter Willie Dixon reworked the lyrics of “This Train” to create the secular “My Babe”—changing from “This train don’t carry no sinners, this train…” to “My babe don’t stand no cheatin’, my babe…”.  Dixon, who was responsible for many of the blues seminal postwar songs, arranged “My Babe” with Little Walter’s soulful voice and his amplified brassy harmonica in mind.  Released two months after Charles’ “I’ve Got a Woman”, “My Babe” became an instant number one hit, spending 19 weeks on the Billboard R&B charts. 

The influence of “My Babe” looms large, marking an important moment in American music when the Chicago blues movement was creating sounds that would eventually become rock and roll.  Little Walter’s harmonica virtuosity with amplified distorted tone fundamentally altered many listeners’ expectations of what was possible on blues harmonica—and those techniques are still in use today around the world.  In 2008, the song was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame as a classic of blues recording.