Customer Reviews

Where the Blues Began

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This forty-track double disc is one of the best of the many Big Bill Broonzy-compilations on the market, especially considering the price, and it does a great job summarizing Big Bill's thirty-year career.

William Lee Conley Broonzy was a huge source of inspiration to many younger bluesmen, Muddy Waters and Memphis Slim among them, and once you've heard him do "I Can't Be Satisfied", "Worrying You Off My Mind" and "You May Need My Help Someday", you'll know why.
Compare this CD to the earliest plantation recordings of Muddy Waters, and suddenly you have the giant of Chicago blues, the great McKinley Morganfield, looking like a Bill Broonzy-imitator. (Muddy actually recorded an entire album of Big Bill's songs, as did Memphis Slim, Broonzy's one-time pianist.)

Big Bill Broonzy was one of the first country-blues musicians to pack up and head north to Illinois, where he became a vital link between rural and urban blues.
This collection features most of his best songs, such as "Keep Your Hands Off Her", "Serve It To Me Right", "Long Tall Mama", "Good Time Tonight", "All By Myself", "I Feel So Good", "When I Been Drinking" and of course "Key To The Highway".

Broonzy's recording career produced literally hundreds of songs. "Where The Blues Began" alternates between Big Bill's solo pieces, and the songs that he recorded with a band in the 20s and 30s, before the folk boom, and it's hard to say which is better. Broonzy was a fine, intricate guitar player, and a powerful and expressive singer, equally at ease on his own or with a band.

The sound quality varies, but that is to be expected. Big Bill's recording career started in the late 20s, after all.
But more importantly, almost all of his best (and best-known) songs are here. Not the folk songs that the European folk audiences requested in the 50s, sure, but Big Bill's own compositions, the blues songs that made him such an incredibly important figure, and one of the first real nation-wide blues stars.

If you're looking for a truly definitive Big Bill-compilation, you won't find it anywhere. But this is probably as close as you can get.
A few songs aren't here which should have been, and a few songs are less remarkable than others, but all in all, this is a very fine testament to the talent of one of the true greats of the blues...a great record, showcasing the talent of the great innovator and the great professional that was William Lee Conley Broonzy.