Big Bill Broonzy

Singer and songwriter

• Born: June 26, 1893 or 1898
• Birthplace: Scott, Mississippi
• Died: August 15, 1958
• Place of death: Chicago, Illinois

Broonzy was one of the top blues artists in history. His deftness with the Delta rhythm he brought into Chicago blues clubs helped to establish him in blues and folk circles, where he helped to introduce the blues to white audiences in the United States, Europe, and beyond.

Early Life

William Lee Conley Broonzy was born in Scott, Mississippi, one of seventeen children born to former slaves Frank Broonzy and Mittie Belcher. Broonzy began his music career on a fiddle made out of a cigar box and was taught to play by his uncle, Jerry Belcher. He played fiddle for local churches after his family moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where he also began work as a preacher.

In 1918, Broonzy was drafted by the U.S. Army and fought in World War I. When he returned to Arkansas in 1919, he began working in clubs in Little Rock. He gained experience as a performer, building a respectable repetoire, but it was not until he moved to Chicago in 1924 that he began building a name as a fiddle player for banjo bluesman Papa Charlie Jackson. In Chicago, Jackson taught Broonzy how to play the instrument that would bring him international stardom—the Martin Model 000-28 acoustic guitar.

Although he devoted most of his time to performing on the Chicago blues circuit, Broonzy also held a second job as a laborer in a foundry in order to support his wife, Anne, and son, Ellis, born in 1924. In 1925, Broonzy began recording songs for Paramount. Most of these songs were unsuccessful, and Paramount did not release any records until “House Rent Stomp” in 1927. Broonzy began leading his own band, the Famous Hokum Boys, in 1930. It included Arnett Nelson, Casey Bill Weldon, and Washboard Sam. In 1935, Broonzy began recording for the likes of Bluebird Records, Columbia, Okeh, and Vocalion.

Broonzy became so well established that he was invited to participate in the groundbreaking “From Spirituals to Swing” concert at Carnegie Hall on December 23, 1938. The concert, which was the first of two seminal performances of African American musicians at the most prestigious venue in the United States, also featured Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Albert Ammons, and many others. The performance helped to introduce Broonzy to white audiences, and he was invited to play at the concert’s second iteration the next year.

Life’s Work

During the 1940’s, Broonzy was forced to take odd jobs to support himself during a strike by the American Federation of Musicians. He was able to find work in the South, touring with blues artist Lil Green. During the early 1950’s, he began performing with a touring folk group called I Come for to Sing, which toured the Midwest playing nightclubs and college campuses. Broonzy contributed blues compositions, while others in the group presented Elizabethan ballads and frontier songs. His participation helped to gain him some recognition within folk circles, and he began working with folk icons, most notably Pete Seeger. Broonzy adapted folk music into blues, such as “Jimmy Crack Corn” or “Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home,” infusing his Delta blues roots with gospel and country melodies. Broonzy’s involvement in the folk group was immensely successful and helped launch his career in Europe, where he first toured in 1951.

The European recordings, including In Concert: Live (Dusseldorf, 1951), In Paris (1956), and On Tour in Britain (1952), became some of Broonzy’s most renowned works. Life in Europe was a new beginning for Broonzy, as commercial success and personal freedom allowed him to experience being treated with respect and dignity. Whereas his earlier songs highlighted the racial prejudices of his time (such as the lyrics to “Black, Brown and White”: “If you black, brother, get back”), Broonzy’s European tracks feature a lighthearted attitude not heard in previous recordings. His performances in Europe frequently received standing ovations, and the lack of racial segregation made life freer and more enjoyable. He spent as much time as possible in Holland, where he met a Dutch woman named Pim van Isveldt, with whom he had a second child, Michael.

In 1955, Broonzy published his autobiography, Big Bill Blues.The book was published with the assistance of Belgian writer Yannick Bruynoghe and presents a first-person account of Broonzy’s years in Mississippi and the blues clubs of Chicago and his tours to Europe. After the book was published, he resumed touring, this time performing throughout Africa and South America. Broonzy died of throat cancer on August 15, 1958.

Significance

A prolific songwriter, Broonzy wrote more than three hundred songs in his thirty-year career. His music was influential not just for his contemporaries, who included Seeger, Muddy Waters, and Memphis Slim, but also for generations of musicians to follow. Broonzy mastered musical styles from hokum to folk, gospel to swing, but always interpreted these styles through the lens of the legendary Delta and Chicago blues. His folk recordings were circulated by the Smithsonian Folkways studio for decades after his death. Because of his profound influence on blues music worldwide, Broonzy was inducted into the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in Richmond, Indiana, in 2007.

Bibliography

Broonzy, Bill, and Yannick Bruynoghe. Big Bill Blues. London: Cassell, 1957. Broonzy’s autobiography provides the most detailed look at his career and life.

Verney, Kevin. African Americans in U.S. Popular Culture. New York: Routledge, 2005. Includes a short biography of Broonzy that describes his influence on African American history and popular culture.

Wardlow, Gayle. Chasin’ That Devil Music: Searching for the Blues. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 1998. Contains a brief synopsis of Broonzy’s life with respect to his role in the history of blues music.