This is powerful music and belongs in any serious music fan’s library. You can’t own too much Muddy Waters. And even if you bought the Chess Box Set, only a third of these tracks were included. ESSENTIAL
~Steve Vrana (amazon.com review)
Not just an essential historical record of an artist and genre, these are some of the most seminal and inspired blues performances ever recorded.
~Hal Horowitz (allmusic.com)
Down South Blues @ spotify:
Wikipedia:
Released
June 27, 2000
Recorded
1947-September 17, 1952 Chicago
Genre
Blues
Length
153:41
Label
MCA/Chess
Producer
Leonard & Phil Chess, Andy McKaie
Compiler
Andy McKaie
Rollin’ Stone: The Golden Anniversary Collection is a compilation album collecting the first 50 master recordings of blues singer Muddy Waters for Chess Records. The collection spans Muddy’s debut with then named Aristocrat Records circa 1947, and traces his evolution as a songwriter and musician up to September 17th, 1952 on what became Chess Records after the company changed ownership. It is the first in a series of releases chronicling Muddy Waters’ complete recording career at Chess. The second release in the series is Hoochie Coochie Man: The Complete Chess Masters, Volume 2, 1952-1958 (2004) and the third release in the series is You Shook Me: The Complete Chess Masters, Volume 3, 1958 to 1963 (2012).
I guess all songs is folk songs. I never heard no horse sing ’em.
~Big Bill Broonzy
Blues is a natural fact, is something that a fellow lives. If you don’t live it you don’t have it. Young people have forgotten to cry the blues. Now they talk and get lawyers and things.
~Big Bill Broonzy
“Worried Man Blues,” “Hey, Hey” and “How You Want It Done.” From the DVD “A Musical Journey”:
Wikipedia:
Birth name
Lee Conley Bradley
Also known as
Big Bill Broonzy, Big Bill Broomsley
Born
June 26, 1893
Lake Dick, Arkansas, U.S.
Died
August 14, 1958 (aged 65)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Genres
Folk music, country blues, Chicago blues, spirituals, protest songs
Occupations
Musician, songwriter, sharecropper, preacher
Instruments
Vocals, guitar, fiddle
Years active
1927–1958
Labels
Paramount, A.R.C., Bluebird, Vocalion, Folkways
Associated acts
Papa Charlie Jackson, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger
Big Bill Broonzy (June 26, 1893 – August 15, 1958) was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly African-American audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with working class African-American audiences. In the 1950s a return to his traditional folk-blues roots made him one of the leading figures of the emerging American folk music revival and an international star. His long and varied career marks him as one of the key figures in the development of blues music in the 20th century.
Broonzy copyrighted more than 300 songs during his lifetime, including both adaptations of traditional folk songs and original blues songs. As a blues composer, he was unique in that his compositions reflected the many vantage points of his rural-to-urban experiences.
When Did You Leave Heaven:
(no.2 on Keith Richards “top 10 reggae and roots songs” – Rollingstone magazine)
Styles & Influences:
Broonzy’s own influences included the folk music, spirituals, work songs, ragtime music, hokum and country blues he heard growing up, and the styles of his contemporaries, including Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Blake, Son House, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Broonzy combined all these influences into his own style of the blues that foreshadowed the post-war Chicago blues sound, later refined and popularized by artists such as Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon.
In 1980, he was inducted into the first class of the Blues Hall of Fame along with 20 other of the world’s greatest blues legends.
In 2007, he was inducted into the first class of the Gennett Records Walk of Fame along with 11 other musical greats including Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Gene Autry, Lawrence Welk and others.
Broonzy as an acoustic guitar player, inspired Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim, Ray Davies, John Renbourn, Rory Gallagher, Ben Taylor, and Steve Howe
In Q Magazine (September 2007) it is reported that Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones claims that Bill Broonzy’s track, “Guitar Shuffle”, is his favorite guitar music. Wood said, “It was one of the first tracks I learnt to play, but even to this day I can’t play it exactly right.”
Eric Clapton has cited Bill Broonzy as a major inspiration: Broonzy “became like a role model for me, in terms of how to play the acoustic guitar.”
During the benediction at the 2009 inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama, the civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery paraphrased Broonzy’s song “Black, Brown and White Blues”.
In order to prepare well for an upcoming Neil Young & Crazy Horse concert in Bergen, Norway 10 August, I will post setlists, statistics & different videos in this article.
This post will be updated regularly when the July leg gets going…
Recent concerts:
2013-06-02, Waldbühne, Berlin, Germany
2013-06-03, O2 World, Hamburg, Germany
2013-06-05, Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2013-06-06, Le Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, Paris, France
2013-06-08, Vorst Nationaal, Brussels, Belgium
2013-06-10, Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle, England
2013-06-11, LG Arena, Birmingham, England
2013-06-13, SECC, Glasgow, Scotland
2013-06-15, RDS Arena, Dublin, Ireland
2013-06-17, The O2 Arena, London, England
Upcoming concerts:
2013-07-11, Rockhal, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
2013-07-12, Lanxess Arena, Köln, Germany
2013-07-14, Moon and Stars, Locarno, Switzerland
2013-07-15, Vienne Antique, Vienne, France
2013-07-17, Le Festival de Nimes, Nimes, France
2013-07-18, Big Festival, Biarritz, France
2013-07-20, Festival Vieilles Charrues, Carhaix-Plouguer, France
Well I’m grinding my life out, steady and sure
Nothing more wretched than what I must endure
I’m drenched in the light that shines from the sun
I could stone you to death for the wrongs that you done
Sooner or later you make a mistake,
I’ll put you in a chain that you never will break
Legs and arms and body and bone
I pay in blood, but not my own
Convocation Center California University of Pennsylvania California, Pennsylvania 13 April 2013
Bob Dylan (vocal, grand piano)
Stu Kimball (guitar)
Duke Robillard (guitar)
Donnie Herron (violin, mandolin, steel guitar)
Tony Garnier (bass)
George Receli (drums & percussion)
Night after night, Day after day
They strip your useless hopes away
The more I take the more I give
The more I die the more I live
I got something in my pocket make your eyeballs swim
I got dogs could tear you limb from limb
I’m circlin’ around the Southern Zone
I pay in blood, but not my own.
Low cards are what I’ve got
But I’ll play this hand whether I like it or not
I’m sworn to uphold the laws of God
You could put me out in front of a firing squad
I’ve been out and around with the rising men
Just like you my handsome friend
My head’s so hard, must be made of stone
I pay in blood, but not my own
Another politician coming out the abyss
Another angry beggar blowing you a kiss
You got the same eyes that your mother does
If only you could prove who your father was
Someone must of slipped a drug in yer wine
You gulped it down and you cross the line
Man can’t live by bread alone
I pay in blood, but not my own
How I made it back home, nobody knows
Or how I survived so many blows
I’ve been thru Hell, What good did it do?
You bastard! I’m suppose to respect you!
I’ll give you justice, I’ll fathom your purse
Show me your moral that you reversed
Hear me holler and hear me moan
I pay in blood but not my own
You get your lover in the bed
Come here I’ll break your lousy head
Our nation must be saved and freed
You’ve been accused of murder, how do you plead?
This is how I spend my days
I came to bury, not to raise
I’ll drink my fill and sleep alone
I play in blood, but not my own
