Big Bill Broonzy

Born in the small Mississippi hamlet of Scott, positioned directly beside the Arkansas border, William Lee Conley Broonzy grew up in a family of itinerant sharecroppers descended from formerly enslaved people. The household relocated to Pine Bluff, where young Broonzy picked up a cigar-box fiddle from his uncle and soon performed violin at local churches, community dances, and within a country string ensemble. Enlisting in the U.S. Army during World War I, he settled in Chicago by 1920 and spent several years laboring in factories. There he encountered New Orleans native Papa Charlie Jackson, an early Paramount blues recording pioneer who mentored him on guitar and employed him as an accompanist. Although Broonzy’s initial 1926 Paramount session yielded nothing, a return visit in November 1927 produced his debut release, “House Rent Stomp.” One early pressing mistakenly listed him as Big Bill Broomsley, prompting him to shorten his professional name to Big Bill, a moniker retained on discs until after World War II; additional pseudonyms on early sides included Big Bill Johnson, Sammy Sampson, and Slim Hunter.

Following the 1930 dissolution of the Hokum Boys, Georgia Tom Dorsey recruited Broonzy and guitarist Frank Brasswell to continue the act in place of Tampa Red, marketing the new lineup as the Famous Hokum Boys. Working with Dorsey and Brasswell, Broonzy found his footing and composed his first notable original, “I Can’t Be Satisfied,” a hit that elevated his standing with record labels. Even in 1932—the bleakest year for the recording industry in the twentieth century, when only a handful of blues artists entered studios—Broonzy cut twenty issued sides. Through Dorsey and Tampa Red he met Memphis Minnie and briefly toured as her second guitarist in the early 1930s, though no joint recordings resulted. Resuming sessions in March 1934 for Bluebird’s newly opened Chicago facility under Lester Melrose, Broonzy earned the producer’s favor and soon functioned as his de facto assistant, scouting talent, pairing material with performers, scheduling dates, and supplying instrumental support. He appeared on hundreds of Bluebird sides throughout the late 1930s and into the 1940s, including those by half-brother Washboard Sam, Peter Chatman (Memphis Slim), John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, and others. Alongside Melrose he helped shape the “Bluebird beat,” a commercially oriented style featuring trap drums and upright bass that anticipated the “Maxwell Street sound” and postwar Chicago blues. Ironically, while Broonzy assisted Melrose extensively at Bluebird, his own vocal recordings appeared primarily on ARC and its Columbia subsidiary Okeh. This peak era yielded such compositions as “Key to the Highway,” “W.P.A. Blues,” “All by Myself,” and “Unemployment Stomp,” plus material written for fellow artists including “Diggin’ My Potatoes.” Altogether Broonzy contributed to more than one hundred original songs.

When impresario John Hammond sought a traditional blues performer for his Spirituals to Swing concerts at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Robert Johnson had been slated yet recently deceased; Broonzy received the invitation and performed on 5 February 1939. The appearance proved successful and led to a part in George Seldes’ 1939 film Swingin’ the Dream with Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. During the early 1940s Broonzy played Café Society, the Village Vanguard, and the Apollo Theater, and toured with Lil Greenwood, engagements that sustained him through the AFM recording ban. By the mid-to-late 1940s the Chicago arrangement with Melrose had begun to taper just as electric blues gained momentum; Broonzy nevertheless continued recording for major labels such as Columbia and Mercury as well as smaller concerns like Hub and RPM. In 1949 he stepped away from music temporarily, taking a janitorial position at Iowa State University of Science & Technology in Ames.

Rediscovered in 1951 by disc jockey and author Studs Terkel, Broonzy joined the concert series I Come for to Sing. The renewed exposure brought substantial press coverage, and by September he was recording in Paris for French Vogue. On that occasion he finally captured “Black, Brown and White,” a commentary on race relations long in his repertoire yet repeatedly rejected by American companies. In Europe Broonzy enjoyed greater popularity than ever before in the United States; documentary films were produced about him in both France and Belgium. From 1951 until failing health curtailed performances in autumn 1957, he nearly doubled the output of his 1927–1949 period. Updating his repertoire with traditional folk numbers in the manner recently adopted by Josh White and Leadbelly, Broonzy drew criticism from blues purists, yet he consistently prioritized broadening the music’s audience and served as a trailblazer in treating blues as an entrepreneurial enterprise. His songwriting, production work, and intermediary role with Melrose prefigured the contributions Willie Dixon would later make at Chess in the 1950s. Broonzy himself prized these behind-the-scenes efforts most highly, viewing his later acclaim as fitting recompense for decades spent advancing the genre and supporting fellow musicians. The recognition proved brief: shortly after the 1955 publication of his autobiography, Big Bill Blues, co-written with Yannick Bruynoghe, he received a diagnosis of throat cancer. Big Bill Broonzy died at age 65 in August 1958, leaving a recorded legacy whose volume and scope at the time surpassed that of any blues artist born before 1900.