Big Bill Broonzy Sings Folk Songs

by Big Bill Broonzy

Overview

Often ranked with such blues greats as Robert Johnson, Son House, and Elmore James, Big Bill Broonzy was for many years the last surviving practitioner of the "Delta" style of blues. This record, cut for Smithsonian Folkways in 1956, captures Broonzy late in his career but still during the peak of his power. Indeed, a more magisterial performance could not be imagined. While born and raised on the Mississippi, Broonzy takes this opportunity to demonstrate the range of musical influences he's successfully mastered over the course of his career. Proving to be equally at home in both country-folk and straight blues idioms, Broonzy offers sparkling renditions of both "Alberta" and "John Henry," where Broonzy sings an interesting set of uncommon lyrics, bending the melody with an inspired blues shift. On "This Train," Broonzy works the call and response with a gospel choir and scathingly delivers the line, "This train carries both white and black now." Perhaps simply to prove a point, he closes with the slightly more contemporary standard "Glory of Love," sweetly inflecting the chorus with a tender bit of jazz lyricism. While this is not considered "the" Broonzy album to own, it is, nonetheless, a very good one, and has the obvious advantage of being kept continuously in print by Smithsonian Folkways. ~ Brian Whitener

Product Details

Release Date:	07/13/1992
Label:	Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
UPC:	0093074002322
Rank:	91908

Tracks

1. Backwater Blues (I Got up One Mornin' Blues)
2. This Train (Bound for Glory)
3. I Don't Want No Woman (To Try to Be My Boss)
4. Martha Blues
5. Tell Me Who
6. Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home
7. Alberta
8. Goin' Down This Road
9. Tell Me What Kind of Man Jesus Is
10. John Henry
11. The Glory of Love

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Big Bill Broonzy   Primary Artist,Guitar,Vocals

Technical Credits

W.F.M.T.   Engineer
Lead Belly   Composer
Doc Watson   Composer
Don Robey   Composer
Toby Mountain   Remixing
Huddie Ledbetter   Composer
Hughie Cannon   Composer
Moses Asch   Engineer
Big Bill Broonzy   Composer
Billy Hill   Composer
Charles Brown   Composer
Charles Edward Smith   Liner Notes
Ronald Clyne   Design
Traditional   Composer
Bessie Smith   Composer