Big Bill Broonzy

An important transitional link between acoustic country blues and electrified urban blues, Big Bill Broonzy, born in Mississippi and raised in Arkansas, helped shape the force that became Chicago blues after moving to the Windy City in 1920 upon completing a tour of duty in the army. A fiddle player at that time, he switched to guitar and began playing the instrument as if born to it, and was often seen in the company of local stars such as Blind Lemon Jefferson and Sleepy John Estes. Even among this crowd, his style was distinctive: basic, fundamental guitar accompaniment highlighted by stark, single-string solos and forceful chording and a smooth but plaintive cry of a singing voice (which moved easily from a world-weary moan to a mellow, sanguine tone) suited to deliver self-penned songs focused on the travails of big city life, social inequities, and hard times with women. More than any guitarist of his time, he made effective use of silence as a dramatic component of his music, sometimes employing only a few strong, angular retorts to punctuate key lyric sections, but at the same time he was an unqualified master of many styles, from ragtime and blues fingerpicking to a flatpicking style that echoed with country influences. And he was prolific: At his death in 1958, over 300 songs had been copyrighted with his name as composer.

Broonzy's early years are well documented on the Yazoo, Columbia, and Legacy collections. The Yazoo discs focus primarily on solo acoustic or duet recordings from 1928 to 1935, whereas Columbia's Good Time Tonight and Warm, Witty & Wise single-disc sets offer both solo acoustic and combo recordings spanning the years 1930 to 1940. A notably delicious treat recommending Do That Guitar Rag is the inclusion of four bawdy numbers featuring scintillating musical dialogues between Broonzy on guitar and Georgia Tom Dorsey on piano (obviously before he saw the light and began writing the songs that defined modern gospel music), supporting Jane Lucas' sassy vocalizing.

An engaging live performance is captured on Evidence's Black, Brown & White, with seven tracks recorded in concert in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1952, and six others recorded in 1955 at a friend's house in Brussels. Playing acoustic, or with pianist Blind John Davis, Broonzy samples virtually every type of song in his repertoire. Topical songs are represented by the brutal title track ("If you's white/you's all right/if you's brown/stick around/but if you's black/oh, brother, get back, get back, get back"), with its light, lilting rhythm quite at odds with the lyric's frontal assaults on racism ("I helped build the country/and I fought for it too/Now I bet you can see/what a black man have to do").

That Broonzy never left his social conscience behind is indicated on the opening track of Collectables' first-rate The 1955 London Sessions, "When Do I Get to Be Called a Man," an explicit litany of the sacrifices a man had made for his country and what his country had witeld in return -- dignity, for one; respect, for another. Apart from the solo acoustic sides, Broonzy is teamed here with a septet on some bluesy, boozy performances with a decidedly New Orleans feel about them, notably "Southbound Train," with trumpeter Leslie Hutchinson blowing piercing, muted fills. Drive Archive's Baby, Please Don't Go suffers only from a lack of adequate liner information, but what's there indicates these 10 tracks were recorded between 1952 and 1955. The key track: the dramatic interpretation of "Backwater Blues (I Got Up One Mornin' Blues)" -- not only one of the most haunting tracks Broonzy ever recorded, but ranks with Bessie Smith's version in terms of the profound sense of loss the singer communicates. Similarly, but with far better annotation, the Smithsonian Folkways entry, Big Bill Broonzy Sings Folk Songs, collects some recordings Broonzy made for the label near the end of his life as well as several live tracks, some featuring Pete Seeger on harmony vocals and banjo, all of which underscore the remarkable breadth and depth of Broonzy's repertoire. From the same label comes a second excellent over-view, Trouble in Mind, containing 24 tracks (including several alternate takes) from the artist's 1956–57 sessions. Seeger is here too, pitching in on banjo and vocals on a stirring live version of "This Train (Bound for Glory)," but Broonzy's solo with acoustic guitar carries the day.

GNP Crescendo's Feelin' Low Down is a set of acoustic sides, raw and potent, but lacking any dates or session information. Apart from that oversight, its 14 cuts feature vintage Broonzy in many moods on songs ranging from his own moving originals (including "Big Bill Blues" and "Lonesome Road Blues") to stirring covers, such as the heavyweight treatment he gives the traditional folk number "John Henry." Before he died of throat cancer in 1958, Broonzy had helped ignite a folk and blues revival in this country that brought attention to many of his contemporaries who might otherwise have died in obscurity. Today he is far less known among the general public than, say, Robert Johnson, but his most penetrating and personal songs remind us of the important issues of his time that remain relevant to our own. (DOUGLAS MCGEE)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide