Tag: Baby Please Don’t Go

LISTEN: The Reverend Shawn Amos, “Baby Please Don’t Go”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Reverend Shawn Amos
Hometown: California immigrant, Texas resident
Song: “Baby Please Don’t Go”
Album: The Cause of It All
Release Date: May 21, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Baby Please Don’t Go’ is quintessential blues. Ours is an amalgam of various versions, and closest to Muddy Waters’. This is another example of us bringing blues back the parlors of the 1920s and ‘30s. What if Muddy Waters was more of a contemporary of Scott Joplin than Little Walter? It’s proof the blues dresses up nicely while keeping its outsider status.” — The Reverend Shawn Amos

Photo credit: Fred Siegel

WATCH: Sabine McCalla Gives a Striking Performance of “Baby, Please Don’t Go”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In March, when artists, businesses, and schools were stepping into a new normal built around public health and safety, New Orleans folk singer Sabine McCalla was preparing for a feature on the popular roots music series Western AF. She selected “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” a tender ballad written to a fleeting foreigner after a whirlwind romance. McCalla gently sings what many could not bear to say, and does so with a hypnotic look in her eyes.

Like the Mona Lisa, McCalla wears a beautiful calmness, seeming at times to hold a soft smile that veils other emotions. The New Orleans based singer/songwriter is joined by an entourage of collaborators who add whimsical, airy harmonies to the fondest portions of the song. The physical arrangement of the group — they sprawl over a couch, spilling into each other’s laps and arms —  instills a sense that McCalla is sharing a painful memory with friends, in conversation. Western AF creates a window into a fragile musical moment as Sabine McCalla delivers a raw performance of this striking song.