Big Bad Bill is Sweet William Now . . . . . .I have said enough before about Big Bill Broonzy and what he means to me, an earliest of blues favourites he remains so, and this was shared on his birthday by Facebook's Don's Tunes. I heard Big Bill cover such classics as See See (C C ) Rider, Trouble in Mind, Baby Please Don't Go and others too numerous to mention but it is Bill who made me remember these classics so they are somehow indelibly written in my soul
Photo by Gerrit Schilp
Remembering the blues legend Big Bill Broonzy (June 26, 1903 – August 14, 1958)
Big Bill Broonzy, one of the most important of the pre-World War II Chicago blues singers, recorded over 250 songs from 1925 to 1952, including "Key to the Highway," "Black, Brown, and White," "Just a Dream," "Hard Hearted Woman," "Looking Up at Down," "Romance Without Finance," and "When Will I Get to Be Called a Man" and is listed as composer of even more.
Muddy Waters recalled in an interview, "that's the nicest guy I ever met in my life. He first say I had it. I guess he was the cause of me going to England the first time, you see... He told 'em, "You ain't heard nothin' till you hear that young boy from Mississippi... . It's young Muddy Waters from Clarksdale, Mississippi. You gotta get him over here." (Jim O'Neal and Amy van Singel, The Voice of the Blues: Classic Interviews from Living Blues Magazine) And Memphis Slim called Bill "the greatest that I have known. There may have been some better, but I didn't know them. He was a wonderful person and a lovely artist."
By 1944, Muddy Waters was meeting the established musicians, including Big Bill Broonzy. “I call my style country style,” said Muddy. “Big Bill was the daddy of country-style blues singers. When I got here, he was the top man.” In a photograph from the 1940s, a proud young Muddy is shaking hands with Big Bill. Bill’s left arm is around Muddy’s shoulders, which slump as if unable to support the notion of Broonzy’s embrace. Muddy’s serious expression cannot hide his pleasure — it may be disbelief — at where he finds himself, and with whom. The folks back home, he seems to be thinking, will never believe it. For decades, Big Bill’s character resonated with Muddy. “You done made hits, you got a big name, the little fellow ain’t nothing,” Muddy said in the 1970s about the star attitude. “But Big Bill, he don’t care where you from. He didn’t look over you ’cause he been on records a long time. ‘Do your thing, stay with it, man. If you stay with it, you going to make it.’ That’s what Big Bill told me. Mostly I try to be like him.”
Robert Gordon - Can't Be Satisfied
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