Every Friday around 11 a.m. Central, it’s time for Classic Americana on Radio Heartland. We pull a special track from the archives or from deep in the shelves to spotlight a particular artist or song.

There’s a lot of mystery surrounding Big Bill Broonzy, starting with when and where he was born. It’s also a bit of a mystery why the person born Lee Bradley took on the name Big Bill Broonzy. But one thing that is irrefutable: Big Bill Broonzy was a hardworking, prolific singer-songwriter and guitarist, and his influence is felt to this day.

Broonzy grew up in Arkansas, the son of formerly enslaved people, and he began playing music at an early age. His first instrument was fiddle, but after he relocated to Chicago as a young man in the 1920s, Broonzy learned to play guitar, which along with his voice, became his go-to instrument.

A committed performer, Broonzy worked various jobs to support himself, but never gave up on his dream of being a full-time musician. From the late 1920s and through the ‘30s, he recorded more than 200 songs. Proficient in country music and rural and urban blues, Broonzy was making a name for himself in the Chicago scene when he was summoned to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York in 1938, a last-minute fill-in for the legendary Robert Johnson who had died unexpectedly. Broonzy became known to a wider audience, and was invited back to Carnegie Hall the following year.

In the 1940s, Broonzy was a foundational artist in the development of the Chicago blues style, noted for its use of electric guitar, and in 1948, he signed with Mercury Records. In the 1950s, however, Broonzy reverted to acoustic guitar, and his career was bolstered by the folk revivals in the U.S., the U.K. and mainland Europe. Broonzy’s most enduring rendition of “C.C. Rider,” a folk standard, was recorded for Broonzy’s self-titled album while Broonzy was on tour in the Netherlands in 1956. That’s the song we’ll hear for our Classic Americana pick, from the Trouble in Mind compilation.

Although Broonzy is well known for his interpretations of blues standards, he is also highly regarded for his original song, “Black, Brown and White,” which addresses discrimination against Black Americans.

In the late 1950s, Broonzy developed cancer, and a botched operation to address the disease damaged Broonzy’s vocal cords. He died of cancer in 1958 — but not before his mother, who lived to age 102 and passed in 1957, got to see her son become a globally recognized musician. Given his extensive touring and recording, Big Bill Broonzy’s music has influenced such musicians as Muddy Waters, The Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, and the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, to name just a few.

Big Bill Broonzy was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.

Classic Americana Playlist

External Links

Big Bill Broonzy: History’s Musical Chamelon – NPR, 2011