Reconsider Baby is a 1954 blues tune written and recorded by Lowell Fulson. Performed in the West Coast blues style, it was Fulson’s first chart hit for Checker Records, a Chess Records subsidiary. The song follows a twelve-bar blues form with Fulson’s prominent guitar solos and a driving, swingy rhythm. Lyrically it is a wistful goodbye to a departing lover, a plea to reconsider. It spent 15 weeks on Billboard’s Rhythm & Blues chart in 1954–55, peaking at number 3, and helped establish Fulson as a blues standard bearer. It was recorded on September 27, 1954 in Dallas, Texas, with a band that included piano, bass, drums and a horn section, and was produced by Leonard Chess and Phil Chess. The tune has been recognized by the Blues Foundation, which inducted it in 1993 as a Classics of Blues Recordings, and by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. It has been covered by many artists, including Elvis Presley, Freddie King, Joe Bonamassa, Eric Clapton and Gregg Allman, and appears on Fulson compilation albums such as Hung Down Head (1970).
