Big Bill Broonzy - Trouble In Mind

 

Once again, something that I picked up at our local library - they get some good stuff at this location! - and so it is missing the liner notes, but I have picked up some background info on the record from the interwebs. Overall, this is based on one of Bill's last albums, the 1957 release of Big Bill Broonzy Sings Country Blues, recorded shortly before he succumbed to cancer. That said, his acoustic guitar playing and singing is still stellar and he proves that he continued to be one of the more important figures in American blues right until the end.

Opening with "Hey, Hey, Baby", an bouncy rag that shows his finger-pickin' prowess on the guitar and his soulful voice, he then moves into folk material that the white, college audience craved at the time, such as "Frankie and Johnny", followed by the title cut, a nicely played'n'sung blues number, while "Joe Turner No. 2" is a topical finger-picked, original folk tune, "Mule-Ridin' Blues" is a talking blues mainly used for amusement and more finger pickin', but more serious topics are in "When Will I Get To Be Called a Man", "Poor Bill Blues" is a quietly powerful blues, and then we get one of Bill's most famous numbers (rightfully), the terrific and oft-covered "Key To the Highway".

From there we get more basic blues in "Plough-Hand Blues", "Diggin' My Potatoes" is another upbeat rag, "When Things Go Wrong" and "C.C. Rider" were likely more numbers for the white audience, more self-explanatory numbers in "Saturday Evening Blues" and "Shuffle Rag", "Southbound Train" is another quiet blues (it seems that at least some of these songs were recorded with just one mic so that the guitar gets lost or drowned out by the vocals), "Hush, Somebody's Calling Me" is an upbeat gospel tune, more blues in "Louise". "Black, Brown and White Blues" gets a spoken introduction, telling about how he wrote the song about racial injustice (that other labels refused to release), then a lighter mood for "Willie Mae Blues" followed by introductions for live versions of the gospel tune "This Train" and "In the Evening When The Sun Goes Down".

Another fine album by one of the leaders of the folk/blues revival!