Big Bill Broozny

great video - from 1956
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KhPTfPykpDI

Born William Lee Conley Broonzy
June 26, 1893
Scott, MS.
Died
August 15, 1958
Chicago, IL.
Broonzy's body of work--including his enduring
originals "Key to the Highway" and "Black, Brown
and White"--ranks him among Muddy Waters, B.B.
King and Robert Johnson in terms of influence.
A storyteller as much as a lonesome singer, Broonzy was
among the first performers to marry rough rural blues (like
Johnson's brand of Mississippi Delta moaning) with upscale jazzy
city blues (like Charles Brown's cocktail piano crooning). He began
his career as a violinist (a skill he learned from an uncle) and learned
from mentor Papa Charlie Jackson how to adapt those skills to the guitar.
As his obvious talent gradually turned him into a star, he moved to Chicago
and started hooking up with Memphis Slim, Brownie McGhee, John Lee "Son-
ny Boy" Williamson and Big Maceo; he also recorded for many different
labels, including Columbia, OKeh and Bluebird. Most refused to put
out "Black, Brown and White"--a powerful attack on racism with
the memorable tell-it-like-it-is chorus, "Get back," after
Broonzy wrote it in 1949; two years later, in France,
writer-critic Hugues Panassie and record company
officials helped him get it in circulation.

Broonzy's pockets of regional popularity coagulated into an adoring
national audience after he played John Hammond's From Spirituals to Swing
concert (as a replacement for Robert Johnson, who had just died) at New York
City's Carnegie Hall in 1938. Regular Chicago and southern gigs followed until
the 1950s, when Broonzy--along with peers Leadbelly, Josh White and Sonny Terry
and Brownie McGhee--became an avatar of the folk movement. While touring and
recording in Europe throughout the 1950s, he wrote a fascinating biography,
Big Bill Blues, with Danish writer Yannick Bruynoghe.

Because Broonzy was such a prolific writer and because so many different
big record companies put out his stuff, plenty of thorough CD collections doc-
ument various stages of his career. Most impressive include Good Time Tonight
(Columbia/Legacy, 1990, prod. various) [Rating: 5.0] , which spans 1930 to
1940 (including, of course, his classic "I Can't Be Satisfied");

Do That Guitar Rag (1928-35) (Yazoo, 1973) [Rating: 4.5] ; and Blues in the
Mississippi Night (Rykodisc, 1990) [Rating: 5.0] , a sometimes chilling 1946 Alan
Lomax-recorded no-holds-barred conversation between Broonzy, pianist Memphis
Slim and harpist Sonny Boy Williamson about racism in the South.


What to Buy Next:

Feelin' Low Down (GNP Crescendo, 1973) [Rating: 3.5]


Worth Searching For:

Big Bill's Blues (Portrait) [Rating: 5.0] captures Broonzy's
seriousness and humor as well as the spontaneity of his record-
ing process.


From:

MusicHound Blues:
The Essential Album Guide

By Steve Knopper
Copyright © 1998 Visible Ink Press
A division of Gale Research