Topic: Bill Broonzy Re-Issue Sets

[outfidel]

BIG BILL BROONZY - The Complete Vogue Recordings
Vogue 664351-2
CD $39.98

Three CD set with 44 tracks featuring all the recordings Big Bill made in Paris in 1951 and 1952 for the Vogue Record Company including nine previously unissued alternate takes. It's mostly just Bill and his acoustic guitar though on seven tracks recorded live he is joined by his old friend Blind John Davis on piano. Although some of the material is in a "folky" vein Bill's singing and playing are superb throughout and, in fact, we get to hear more of his fabulous guitar technique than we had since his early recordings. Includes original LP artwork and booklet with notes in French and English.

source: Roots & Rhythm

[Yves]

At that time Big Bill had a lovely young French girl friend called Jacqueline. She was as far as I remember round 20... he was a little bit older...
She's still living in the Loire valley - near Chambord - I had the opportunity and pleasure to have an afternoon to discuss with her about.... Big Bill. She show me her "collection" of Bill's 78' and photos that have been taken during these days.
She's also a good friend of Mickey Baker - still living in the South West of France near Toulouse - and was in close relationship of Memphis Slim when he was in Paris.
I remember Mickey tising him while MS was driving his white Roll Royce car instead of having a chauffeur !

Yves

[Rockdale]

I just bought the Shanachie DVD with Big Bill Broonzy and Roosevelt Sykes on it a few days ago. It's great but I'm sure most of you have already seen it. The first song that Broonzy sings ( When Did You Leave Heaven) is just amazing. I've never heard of it before. Are there any other admirers of this particular song out there?
  If so, do any of you play it?

         Thanks,
          Rockdale

[conqueroo]

BIG BILL BROONZY BOX SET FEATURES AMSTERDAM LIVE CONCERTS FROM 1953

Live recordings from bluesman?s artistic prime to be made available in the U.S. on Munich Records September 19

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands ? Two CDs capturing live performances by Big Bill Broonzy will be released in the U.S. as a box set by Munich Records on September 19. Featuring the long awaited recordings of two shows from February of 1953, Big Bill Broonzy: Amsterdam Live Concerts 1953 contains 25 songs and between-song storytelling, plus extensive liner notes about Broonzy?s legacy and his little-known second life as a European, and dozens of previously unseen photos.
 
After an afternoon performance in Holland in 1953, Broonzy was taken to a pub in old Amsterdam. When he was asked to sing a few more songs he refused, to the surprise of his Dutch friends. When they asked for the reason, he explained that he was afraid he?d be arrested for being black. After it had been explained to him that there was no reason to fear that in the Netherlands, Bill played for over an hour. Thus was Big Bill?s experience of Europe, but especially the Netherlands, where he was made to feel welcome and would live different life than he knew in the States. He met and fell in love with a Dutch girl, Pim van Isveldt. Together they had a child named Michael who still lives in Amsterdam.
 
Although these performances were recorded in the early ?50s, Louis van Gasteren, who was a sound engineer at the time and went on to become one of the Netherlands? most acclaimed filmmakers, ensured the integrity of the recordings. Locked away in van Gasteren?s safe for more than 50 years, they are finally surfacing now after a few failed attempts at releasing them between the ?50s and ?80s. The first concert took place on February 26 at the Ons Huis club in the Rozenstraat in Amsterdam and the second on February 28, in the middle of a sold-out European tour.
 
Also included in the box set are never before published photos from the private collections of Michael van Isveldt, The Maria Austria Institute and the Netherlands Jazz Archive. 
 
Broonzy was born in Scott County Mississippi in 1901. Learning guitar from his uncle Jerry Belcher, he played country dances and picnics. Bronzy served in the U.S. Army during World War I, and in 1924, following his discharge plus a short return to Arkansas, he moved to Chicago, where he joined such musical contemporaries as Memphis Minnie, Tampa Red, Jazz Gillum, Lonnie Johnson and John Lee ?Sonny Boy? Williamson. In 1938, Broonzy performed as part of John Hammond?s famous ?Spiritual & Swing? concert at Carnegie Hall ? his first show for a white audience. He recorded more than 260 blues songs as he traveled between Chicago and the South. With the arrival of electric artists like Muddy Waters, Broonzy?s brand of folk blues was pushed aside. He found adoration in Europe, where he first toured in 1951. The material from Amsterdam Live Concerts was recorded on tour in ?53. In 1957, Broonzy was diagnosed with throat cancer, and died in August 1958. His early ?50s work in Europe represents some of the best performances of his career.
 
# # #

[Bunker Hill]

Here is some "insider" information from Guido van Rijn reported in December last year:

For the past three years I have been working on a Big Bill Broonzy project.
Work has now been completed and the results will be published on 1 February
2006.
It is a DVD size box containing two CDs and a 48-page booklet in DVD box
size. The CDs contain two unissued concerts Big Bill Broonzy gave in
Amsterdam on 26 and 28 February 1953. They were recorded by Louis van
Gasteren and are in superior sound quality.

The booklet contains three essays and 38 unique photographs, many of them
published for the first time. They show Big Bill and his relatives in
Arkansas, Big Bill and his Amsterdam girlfriend, Big Bill and his Amsterdam
son Michael, Big Bill at Dutch concerts and radio shows, Big Bill's coffin
carried to its grave, Big Bill lying in state with Brother John Sellers
officiating, etc. I traced many of the Dutch jazz friends that Bill
presented with photographs. The most spectecular of these photos is a
hitherto unknown one of Bill leaning on his 1939 Chevrolet in Chicago in
1941. Next to him is Tommy McClennan playing his guitar!

[uncle bud]

I'm quite looking forward to this. I've been listening to postwar Big Bill a fair amount lately and his playing is generally astonishing. A helluva thumb to start with. Great singing too. I know that on the Juke, we have Treat Me Right and Trouble in Mind from the postwar recordings, should anyone care to listen to them. Check out the instrumental of St. Louis Blues - smokin'.

[Richard]

I have an LP or two of some of his post-war stuff somewhere... I will be interested to see if any of this is the same.

[Doc White]

A couple of years back a German label Jasmine, released a concert of Big Bill with an Australian trad jazz band led by Graeme Bell. This was recorded in Hamburg in 1951 and is pretty good quality. He sounds as though he is having a good time. Graeme Bell mentions this concert and his memories of Big Bill in his autobiography.
Cheers,
Chris

[Bunker Hill]

A couple of years back a German label Jasmine, released a concert of Big Bill with an Australian trad jazz band led by Graeme Bell. This was recorded in Hamburg in 1951 and is pretty good quality. He sounds as though he is having a good time. Graeme Bell mentions this concert and his memories of Big Bill in his autobiography.

Yeah I have this on a 1980s Italian LP and there's certainly an empathy between BBB and the band, which wasn't always the case with such collaborations. The sound quality of the Jasmine CD (2002) is head and shoulders above that of the Italian effort. On a point of information Jasmine are a long establish south east London jazz label and the concert was held in Dusseldorf rather than Hamburg. (Yikes, there's that pedant again...s-o-r-r-y)

[Doc White]

Hi Bunker Hill,
I stand corrected. Dusseldorf it was. No problem with pedantry, it keeps us all honest.
Cheers,
Chris

[Richard]

I have a few 78s of Graeme Bell  but I think sadly without BBB.. I will check though as that would be nice 

Maybe there is some advantage to being a keen jazzer after all 

[norman]

Hi there. Just have a question for you guys

Yesterday I ordered The Bill Broonzy Story and I am wondering if it is from the same recording session during which the Big Bill Broonzy sings folk songs album was recorded.

I soooo love his very of Glory of Love on that last record and am hoping the 3 cd set is simply an extended version of the session. I just can't seem to find the information.

Thanx for your time.

Vince

[Stuart]

Hi Vince:

I don't know if they are from the same recording session. The Big Bill Broonzy Story was originally a 5 LP set (released by Verve?), while Big Bill Sings Folk Songs was released by Folkways. There is another LP that was recorded during roughly the same time period, "Big Bill Broonzy Interviewed by Studs Terkel" (Folkways F-3586). I have the original LP as well as a CDR that was a "custom CD" ordered from Smithsonian-Folkways. As I understand it, the agreement was that SF was to keep the entire Folkways catalog in print (which meant as special order custom CDs or cassette tapes as well as the commercially released CDs).  However, I just checked the SF site and F-3586 is not listed. I don't know why. (Does anybody know about this?) If you get a chance, you should give it a listen. Although there is overlap with The Big Bill Broonzy Story, from what I understand, Studs and Big Bill were friends and you can hear a certain chemistry in the interview.

[Bunker Hill]

The Bill Broonzy Story 5 LP boxset was recorded 12-13 July 1957 for Verve (SET 3000) with one entire record devoted to an interview with Bill Randle. They were subsequently released as single LPs. Big Bill Broonzy Sings Folk Songs was a Folkways recording (LP 2328) made in October 1957. Without listening, and relying solely on memory, his renditions of the Billy Hills 40s standard are much the same on both.
BH
PS LP 3586 was recorded 14 November 1956.

[dave stott]

amazon.com has the new release with a price of $50 with no track listing.

Before I lay out that kind of money, I am wondering if anyone has listened to it and can tell me how good the sound is...

I'd also appreciate seeing a track listing of the songs on this 2 CD release?