Although he had been performing since he was a young man, Robert Pete Williams only came into public view during the late '50s, when he was recorded for posterity by the musicologlist Harry Oster at Angola prison in Louisiana, where Williams was serving a life sentence for murder (a crime he claimed was commited in self defense). On the strength of these recordings, Williams eventually received a full pardon in 1964, and began to perform his semi-improvised, artful narratives of prison life at festivals and clubs during the folk/blues revival of the 1960s and afterwards. Like John Lee Hooker's, his guitar accompaniments are often characterized by a free-style rhythmic and harmonic conception. During this period, he would also occasionally perform with Mississippi Fred McDowell, another traditional bluesman whose career was revived in later life.