Review of Big Bill Broonzy : Amsterdam Live Concerts 1953
Think of Big Bill Broonzy as Leadbelly with sharper teeth. Like the seminal Texas strummer, Broonzy worked in the songster tradition, using guitar purely as accompaniment to his storytelling rather than a means of virtuosic expression. But Broonzy's political lyrics--especially the famed color-line critique "Black, Brown, and White," with its warning "if you're black, get back"--are more direct. So are his onstage observations about racism and poverty in America in the two just-unveiled concerts on this two-disc set. As the liner notes explain, gin and the warmth of Broonzy's audience loosened the native Mississippian's lips on these nights. Nonetheless, his openhearted delivery of originals like "Just a Dream," later covered by his disciple Muddy Waters, and the standard repertoire of the early folk-blues era ("Midnight Special," Leroy Carr's "When the Sun Goes Down") is on the mark. An improvised stab at "Guitar Rag" and a "Happy Birthday" to a new acquaintance testify to the informality of these sets. They also lend breadth to a rare self-portrait of this highly influential bluesman as an inspired entertainer. --Ted Drozdowski

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Your latest reviews - Big Bill Broonzy : Big Bill's Best Box...3.5 stars
With this box you get the pre-war sides of the Chicago Gentleman of the blues. Broonzy was interesting in that, at least to me, he seems rather emotionally detatched, vocally, much of the time. Particularly in comparison to many of his contemporaries. Whereas Skip James can make you feel like you just heard a ghost crying on the wind, Broonzy kinda sounds like a stately, distinguished gentleman. Certainly a feat, considering how sexually explicit some of his lyrics are.

I think the idea of a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is ridiculous to begin with, but if Broonzy isn't in it (maybe he is, I don't know), then it's even more ridiculous than I thought. Broonzy had a much larger stylistic impact upon rock & roll than did, say, Robert Johnson, who I would imagine is probably already in there for no other reason than Clapton and Keith Richards can't seem to ever shut up about him. Detach yourself from the hype and actually just listen to the musics of Broonzy and Johnson. There is nothing of Johnson's sound or style that widely found its way into rock & roll. Now listen to quite alot of Broonzy's music. Much of Broonzy's music isn't even so much blues as it is rhythm & blues... the very foundation of the later Chicago blues sound, and early R&R sounds. Water down the lyrics, add some horns or an electric guitar, speed it up a bit, make it 25 years later and some of Big Bill's music is 1950s rock & roll.

Not that I give or take two doo-doos of merit to something because it did or did not influence rock, but seeing as how so many classic-rock fans are always regurgitating the same stuff they've read in 50 Clapton interviews, it annoys me how many blues-rock fans will go on and on about how Robert Johnson was the greatest blues musician ever, as well as some sort of genius proto-architect of rock, when this guy (Broonzy) that most of those same people have never heard, clearly, at times, sounds like a main influence for everyone from Little Richard to Johnny Cash & the Tennessee Two. I'm not slighting Robert's music here, just saying that if you believe the hype, he seemed to do everything but create the earth and sky.

As for Broonzy's music itself, this is a blessing and a curse. Sometimes he does indeed fall into many of the repetitious and bland pitfalls that became the hallmark of the famed post-war "Chicago Blues sound" that oftentimes bores me to tears. That is certainly not all the music in this great box, though. And of course some of his music does dig deep. It's not all just sex and fun.

I feel special mention must be made of Black Bob, Broonzy's longtime pianist. He is as much the star of this box as is Broonzy himself.

As for JSP's work on this box, it is lovely as usual. This is the best sounding Big Bill I have heard. My 3.5 stars don't slight JSPs fine transfers, it's just that as much as I like Big Bill, I personally have never elevated him to the same level as the Memphis Minnies, Lonnie Johnsons, Skip James', Blind Willie McTells, etc... of the world. If you're a huge Big Bill fan, or a first-timer just looking to check him out, this is as fine a box (and price) as you will ever find. I've had this box for 4 or 5 months now and it has yet to escape my player for more than a couple days.