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LP
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YAZ 1035CLP
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2022 restock; color vinyl version. Originally released in 1973. "The late Big Bill Broonzy looms as one of the few country blues greats whose career seems as remarkable as his musicianship. He played every professional role available to the untutored black guitarist of his generation: that of the country blues soloist catering to dance audiences, the city bluesman beguiling record-buyers with full-dress lyric themes and a slow song delivery, and the folk entertainer trading on familiar standards ear-marked for white listening audiences... It is his early career as a country bluesman that this LP, like its companion volume The Young Bill Broonzy commemorates."
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TEG 78513LP
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"Born Lee Bradley Conley, the revered blues musician Big Bill Broonzy first picked up performing at the early age of 10, playing a violin made from a cigar box. He switched from fiddle to guitar in the 1920s, after returning from a two-year World War One service in Europe, and immediately leaving his home in Arkansas for Chicago, sensing opportunity. From there, Broonzy immediately set to work establishing himself, performing at various parties and social gatherings. Throughout the late 20s and into the 1930s, Broonzy's fortunes gradually increased as word spread of his talents. During this time he recorded numerous singles for classic blues labels like Paramount, Gennett, Champion, and Vocalion, and began to regularly perform in Chicago's South Side venues. Broonzy was one of the few classic bluesmen to record with a full band, but he particularly defined himself from his peers through the remarkable range and power to his singing voice, which served him well as blues started to give way to the earliest incarnations of R&B music. Big Bill Broonzy also set himself apart from his contemporaries into the 1940s. Many of the progenitor bluesmen of the time had given up music during the Great Depression, but Broonzy persisted, and continued to evolve his sound beyond traditional country blues. During this time, Broonzy would record one of his best-known singles, 'Key To The Highway', (a blues standard which would also be covered by Little Walter, Eric Clapton, and the Rolling Stones) and set the stage for a new wave of blues performers, and later rock and rollers, by being among the first of his genre to introduce electric instrumentation into his act. The 1950s were a banner year for traditional folk and country blues, where renewed interest in the styles led to new audiences in England and America. As numerous classic bluesmen began to come out of retirement to perform, Broonzy was already several steps ahead, having found success as part of a touring folk revue, and was featured alongside legendary folk singers such as Pete Seeger and Brownie McGhee. He continued to perform across folk and jazz clubs earning critical praise and standing ovations up to his death in 1958, having left behind an indelible blues legacy that inspired a wealth of legends, from Muddy Waters to Eric Clapton to Jerry Garcia."
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WLV 82071LP
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Big Bill Broonzy experienced more in his 55 years on this planet than most. Before his recording career began in Chicago in the 1920s he had already been married, worked as a sharecropper, a Pullman porter, a cook, and served for two years in World War I. After cutting some of the most legendary blues 78s in the '20s and '30s, despite some success, Broonzy still had to work odd jobs through most of the '40s to survive and by the time the folk revival and Pete Seeger found him, he only had a few years left. This collection documents those final years, from 1951 to 1958, where Broonzy was touring Europe and finally receiving some of the worldwide acclaim he had long deserved. Though these recordings come at the end of his life, his guitar skill is honed and his voice like a fine aged whiskey. Another incredible collection of American blues from Wax Love.
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YAZ 1035HLP
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2024 restock. 180 gram reissue, originally released in 1973. "The late Big Bill Broonzy looms as one of the few country blues greats whose career seems as remarkable as his musicianship. He played every professional role available to the untutored black guitarist of his generation: that of the country blues soloist catering to dance audiences, the city bluesman beguiling record-buyers with full-dress lyric themes and a slow song delivery, and the folk entertainer trading on familiar standards ear-marked for white listening audiences... It is his early career as a country bluesman that this LP, like its companion volume The Young Bill Broonzy commemorates."
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YAZ 1011HLP
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2017 repress. 180 gram reissue, originally released in 1968. "Big Bill Broonzy was probably the most important Chicago blues artist of the thirties and early forties (that's before the period of 'Chicago blues' represented by Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf)."
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