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| |  | | We all have our guitar heroes, the people we listen to and learn from. They had heroes too, and we can learn from them as well. In this magazine’s first issue, Martin Carthy gave a more than honourable mention to the blues guitarist and singer, Big Bill Broonzy, which makes him a good first choice for this series on great acoustic guitarists of the past.
It’s not only Martin Carthy who listened closely. Lonnie Donegan and Keith Richards have also spoken of their liking for his music, and Eric Clapton recorded Broonzy’s ‘Hey, Baby, Hey’ on his Unplugged album. What made Big Bill one of the first blues guitarists to become known in the UK was that he had made a lot of recordings and, better still, he was one of the first bluesmen to start touring Europe. This turned out to be a good career move, and Bill marketed himself by claiming to be the last living bluesman in America. That he said this in the mid-50s shows that he was not the most reliable source of information.
Big Bill was six and a half feet tall, so he fully deserved his nickname. He was born William Lee Conley Broonzy in 1893 (or perhaps 1898 – these things are often vague in the blues) in the Mississippi Delta, one of 17 children. It’s not clear whether he ever went to school. The family moved to Arkansas and he was soon working as a farm labourer. His first musical instrument was a home-made fiddle and it is claimed that he developed his voice by singing in the fields. He was called into the army towards the end of the First World War. Afterwards, like many other African-Americans, he left the South and headed for Chicago, where there was more work and much less racial prejudice. It was in Chicago that he took up the guitar, and was soon part of the very lively music scene – lively because there was a large black audience for music.
Big Bill made his first recordings in 1928, though he claimed that he cut his first songs in 1923. Through the 30s and 40s he was closely involved in the record business as performer, accompanist, talent scout and songwriter – with songs like ‘Key To The Highway’ and ‘When I Been Drinking’. He often played with piano players, as well as backing many singers. In the late 30s he was even recording with horns and a rhythm section. In fact, he probably recorded more than any other male blues singer and it’s claimed that he wrote some 300 songs. And yet for all this activity, he had to take menial jobs to support himself. As for most bluesmen, the music did not make a living.
Around 1950 things must have looked grim. Big Bill was working as a janitor, while the music scene was being taken over by a new generation of blues performers led by Muddy Waters, with a raw, brash electric sound. Big Bill encouraged them, but they would have made him feel old. Very astutely (or very luckily), he went back to where he started his recording career, back to voice and acoustic guitar. This fitted very well with the new audience for folk music that arose in the early 50s and it meant that he was able to cross over to a white audience. He made his first tour of Europe, including the UK, in 1951 and returned in 1955 and 1957, recording extensively. He died in Chicago of cancer in 1958.
Right from the start he had a hard-driving, swinging style of playing, which he combined with an excellent ear for melody. He nearly always uses standard tuning. He played finger-style, with the thumb of his picking hand beating out the rhythm, often striking two bass strings at once, but muted by the heel of his hand. Like many blues players he learnt his trade playing so that people could dance. The sense of swing this generates moves the feet and lifts the heart. And he could throw in long solo phrases without losing time.
He was also a very good singer, with a surprisingly high voice. And, unlike the more rural singers, he sings very clearly. This enables him to put over his lyrics. In the early songs these could be full of sexual innuendo:
‘And she do a little this and, mama, she do a little that
Mmm, she do a little this and she do a little that
And when she put on full steam, make a freight train jump the track.’
(Long Tall Mama)
Later on the words of his songs became more political. In fact, they are early protest songs, like ‘Black, Brown And White’ with its refrain of:
‘If you’s white, you’s all right
If you’s brown, stick around
But as you’re black
Get back, get back, get back.’
There are plenty of photos of Big Bill which show him with a variety of guitars over the years. With the 1950s and his move back to a simpler folk style, he appears to have settled down with a Martin 000-28, which looks tiny in his big hands.
As already mentioned, Big Bill had a huge recorded output, and he keeps to a high standard. There’s a good low-price compilation on Indigo called I Feel So Good but the one I recommend is The Young Bill Broonzy 1928-1935 (Yazoo 1011). The first track, ‘Long Tall Mama’ (lyrics quoted earlier) is a small masterpiece of inventive acoustic blues.
Let’s give Big Bill the last word. He speaks with the directness and zest of his playing: ‘Just write Big Bill was a well-known blues singer and player… he was a happy man when he was drunk and playing with women; he was liked by all the blues singers, some would get a little jealous sometimes but Bill would buy a bottle of whisky and they all would start laughing and playing again…’
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