Big Bill Broonzy: 300+

Being a little bit of everything has helped retain the legacy of Big Bill Broonzy. It’s not that he didn’t have a style  that was his own, it’s just that the guitarist was able to absorb so many ideas from so many different places as to arrive at some convoluted, albeit entertaining and all too satisfying amalgam of blues, rags and spirituals. It’s been guessed that Broonzy recorded something like three hundred songs. And even if that number is a bit askew, that many songs were at his disposal seeing as he copyrighted around the same number, although, some of those works were old tyme numbers.

Living in Mississippi until he was around twenty five (there are varying accounts of his birth place and date) allowed the young musician to pick up a broad swath of influence. Of course, the fact that he hadn’t quite yet picked up the guitar didn’t matter, Broonzy was working as a fiddler. The inclusion of that instrument in his formative instruction of music should point to what other stuffs he was being exposed to.

At the turn of the 20^th century, the development of country, blues, folk and jazz were all at about the same place. And the ability of a developing player to imbibe all of these things surely affected the way in which Broonzy would eventually approach the guitar when he arrived in Chicago during the ‘20s.

It was during an enormous population migration that Broonzy arrived in the north and began working in and around the burgeoning blues scene in the Windy City, which also had a great deal of the recording industry surrounding it. Chicago, though, would be important in Broonzy’s development as much as his background and time spent in the south where he’d picked up an extensive song book.

“Leave My Man Alone,” while not sung by Broonzy, finds the guitarist backing up a singer that was helping to move blues towards a more urban, if not urbane, sound. His guitar playing on that track still retained the country swagger and stomp of rags that he’d acquired elsewhere, but alongside the striding piano, it was clear that Broonzy was capable of working in any genre.

Of course, the guitarist isn’t most noted for his backing players up. And alongside “Leave My Man Alone” on a collection called Do That Guitar Rag are a number of tracks that expose listeners to his shifting interests even as “Pussy Cat Blues” comes along to sit in roughly the same territory as the aforementioned track only augmented by some sultry lyrics.

“Guitar Rag Blues” showcases Broonzy’s talents in a mostly instrumental manner with the guitarist only occasionally yelling out some phrase lost to time and tape transfers and the title of the track. But in this jaunty tune be found the rest of Broonzy’s talents. Sure, he was alright as a vocalist, but as an instrumentalist and arranger, there don’t seem to be too many better examples of his prowess set to tape.

Do That Guitar Rag might be just one of innumerable compilations featuring Broonzy’s work, but it’s still of enough value as to sang it.