Trouble in Mind (Big Bill Broonzy album)

Last updated
Trouble in Mind
Trouble in Mind 2000 album.jpg
Studio album by Big Bill Broonzy
Released February 22, 2000
Recorded 1956 - 1957
Genre Country blues
Length1:13:39
Label Smithsonian Folkways

Trouble in Mind is an album by American blues musician Big Bill Broonzy. It was released on February 22, 2000 by Smithsonian Folkways. The album consists of traditional folk, blues, and spiritual songs featuring Broonzy accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and a guest appearance by Pete Seeger. Suffering from cancer, Broonzy realized his time was limited and hence recorded extensively between 1956 and 1957. While most of the work draws from the album Big Bill Broonzy Sings Country Blues (1957), arranged by Moses Asch and Charles Edward Smith, Trouble in Mind is also sourced from concert broadcasts and interviews recorded late in Broonzy's career.

Album collection of recorded music, words, sounds

An album is a collection of audio recordings issued as a collection on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78-rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl LP records played at ​33 1⁄3 rpm. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used alongside vinyl from the 1970s into the first decade of the 2000s.

Blues is a music genre and musical form which was originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1870s by African Americans from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, and the folk music of white Americans of European heritage. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.

Big Bill Broonzy American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist

Big Bill Broonzy was an American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s, when he played country blues to mostly African-American audiences. Through the 1930s and 1940s 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.

Contents

Like other albums issued by Smithsonian Folkways, Trouble in Mind has been kept in print; the production quality of the album is higher than most installments of the label's catalogue. An accompanying booklet, arranged by Jeff Place and Anthony Seeger, includes photos and notes documenting Broonzy's stint with Folkways. While Trouble in Mind only represents the latter portion of Broonzy's career, music critics have recognized the album for its historically significant material.

Background and recording

An extensively recorded bluesman, Big Bill Broonzy left the United States to tour Europe in 1951, becoming the first Chicago blues player to perform for European audiences. [1] Broonzy previously spent time in Iowa, where he honed a repertoire which remained a fixture of his concerts and recordings for the remainder of the decade. [1] With bluesmen such as Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf amplifying their music, resulting in the popularity of the electric blues, Broonzy decided to reinvent himself as a folk blues musician to capitalize on another prevailing trend, the folk revival. [1] [2]

Chicago blues form of blues music indigenous to Chicago, Illinois

The Chicago blues is a form of blues music indigenous to Chicago, Illinois. Chicago blues is an electric blues style of urban blues. Urban blues evolved from classic blues following the Great Migration, or the Great Northern Drive, which was both forced and voluntary at times, of African Americans from the southern United States to the industrial cities of the north, such as Chicago. Big Bill Broonzy and Muddy Waters directly joined that migration, like many others, avoiding the more harsh southern Jim Crow laws. Bruce Iglauer, founder of Alligator Records stated that, "Chicago blues is the music of the industrial city, and has an industrial sense about it." Additionally, recognizing the shift in blues, Chicago blues singer and guitarist Kevin Moore expressed the blues transition stating, "You have to put some new life into it, new blood, new perspectives. You can't keep talking about mules, workin' on the levee." Chicago blues was heavily influenced by Mississippi bluesmen who traveled to Chicago in the early 1940s. The development of blues, up to Chicago blues, is arguably as follows: Country blues, to city blues, to urban blues. Chicago blues is based on the sound of the electric guitar and the harmonica, with the harmonica played through a PA system or guitar amplifier, both heavily amplified and often to the point of distortion, and a rhythm section of drums and bass with piano depending on the song or performer.

Muddy Waters American blues singer and guitarist

McKinley Morganfield, known professionally as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago blues", and an important figure on the post-war blues scene.

Howlin Wolf American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player

Chester Arthur Burnett, known as Howlin' Wolf, was a Chicago blues singer, guitarist, and harmonica player, originally from Mississippi. With a booming voice and imposing physical presence, he is one of the best-known Chicago blues artists. The musician and critic Cub Koda noted, "no one could match Howlin' Wolf for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring its patrons out of its wits." Producer Sam Phillips recalled, "When I heard Howlin' Wolf, I said, 'This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies.'" Several of his songs, including "Smokestack Lightnin'", "Killing Floor" and "Spoonful", have become blues and blues rock standards. In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 54 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".

Folkways Records producer Moses Asch and New York-based jazz critic Charles Edward Smith took an interest to Broonzy's folk material. [1] Ashe envisioned recording Broonzy in a style reminiscent of his 1930s records: as a solo performer accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. [1] According to musicologist Jeff Place, Broonzy's stripped-down approach brought his singing and lyrics to the forefront. [1] Although fusing folk with blues influences was common during the folk revival, particularly with Lead Belly and Josh White, Broonzy was arguably the most chronicled bluesman of the era. [1] [2] Asch and Smith had partaken in several projects with Broonzy, including albums and interviews, before he was forced to retire from music in early 1957, due to complications from throat cancer. [1]

Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987 and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.

Moses Asch, often known as Moe Asch, was a Polish-American recording engineer and record executive. He founded Asch Records, which then changed its name to Folkways Records when the label transitioned from 78 RPM recordings to LP records. Asch ran the Folkways label from 1948 until his death in 1986. Folkways was very influential in bringing folk music into the American cultural mainstream. Some of America's greatest folk songs were originally recorded for Asch, including "This Land Is Your Land" by Woody Guthrie and "Goodnight Irene" by Lead Belly. Asch sold many commercial recordings to Verve Records; after his death, Asch's archive of ethnic recordings was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution, and released as Smithsonian Folkways Records.

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music". Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression. It then emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms".

Music

Trouble in Mind is largely culled from a recording session in New York produced by Asche and Smith; originally, Folkways released the studio work on the album Bill Broonzy Sings the Country Blues in 1957. [1] [3] The final two tracks were taped during a concert at Northwestern University. Spoken introductions and commentary were spliced together from interviews conducted by DJ Studs Terkel on the radio station WFMT. Aside from Pete Seeger on banjo for a live rendition of "This Train (Bound for Glory)", all the instrumentation is credited to Broonzy. [1]

Northwestern University Private research university in Illinois, United States

Northwestern University (NU) is a private research university based in Evanston, Illinois, United States, with other campuses located in Chicago and Doha, Qatar, and academic programs and facilities in Miami, Florida; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco, California. Along with its undergraduate programs, Northwestern is known for its Kellogg School of Management, Pritzker School of Law, Feinberg School of Medicine, Bienen School of Music, Medill School of Journalism, and McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Studs Terkel American author, historian and broadcaster

Louis "Studs" Terkel was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War, and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago.

WFMT classical music radio station in Chicago

WFMT is an FM radio station in Chicago, Illinois, featuring a format of fine arts, classical music programming, and shows exploring such genres as folk and jazz. The station is managed by Window To The World Communications, Inc., owner of WTTW, one of Chicago's two Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Public television stations. WFMT is also the primary station of the WFMT Radio Network, and the Beethoven and Jazz Networks. WFMT transmits from the Willis (Sears) Tower.

The majority of the original songs were written by Broonzy, who was also credited as musical arranger on some covers. On "Key to the Highway", he collaborated with piano player Charlie Segar, creating the melody while Sagar wrote most of the lyrics. Broonzy's willingness to address sensitive political issues are especially evident on "Joe Turner No. 2", "When Will I Get to Be Called Man", and "Black, Brown, and White Blues", topical songs that other record labels refused to release. [1] [4] Included on Trouble in Mind are renditions of traditional folk and blues compositions such as "Frankie and Johnny", "When Things Go Wrong (It Hurts Me Too)", and "C.C. Rider". These tracks, frequently played by Broonzy live, ensured that his albums would have instant appeal for white audiences in the manner of various country blues-based LPs that had resulted from the rediscovery of old-time blues artists. [1]

Cover version later version of a song already established with a different earlier performer

In popular music, a cover version, cover song, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by someone other than the original artist or composer of a previously recorded, commercially released song.

Key to the Highway single

"Key to the Highway" is a blues standard that has been performed and recorded by several blues and other artists. Blues pianist Charlie Segar first recorded the song in 1940. Jazz Gillum and Big Bill Broonzy followed with recordings during 1940–41, using an arrangement that has become the standard. When Little Walter updated the song in 1958 in an electric Chicago blues style, it became a success on the R&B record chart. A variety of artists have since interpreted the song, including Eric Clapton, who recorded several versions.

Piano musical instrument

The piano is an acoustic, stringed musical instrument invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700, in which the strings are struck by hammers. It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings.

Release and reception

Smithsonian Folkways released Trouble in Mind on February 22, 2000; the label keeps the album in print. The album's liner notes were supplied by musicologist Jeff Place, who wrote detailed Broonzy's career and the songs complied on the album. Considering Trouble in Mind compiles recordings produced in the 1950s, the album is enhanced by higher sound quality, more so than most Smithsonian Folkways releases. [3] [5]

Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records, donated the entire Folkways Records label to the Smithsonian. The donation was made on the condition that the Institution continue Asch's policy that each of the more than 2,000 albums of Folkways Records remain in print forever, regardless of sales. Since then, the label has expanded on Asch's vision of documenting the sounds of the world, adding six other record labels to the collection, as well as releasing over 300 new recordings. Some well-known artists have contributed to the Smithsonian Folkways collection, including Pete Seeger, Ella Jenkins, Woody Guthrie, and Lead Belly. Famous songs include "This Land Is Your Land", "Goodnight, Irene", and "Midnight Special." Due to the unique nature of its recordings, which include an extensive collection of traditional American music, children's music, and international music, Smithsonian Folkways has become an important collection to the musical community, especially to ethnomusicologists, who utilize the recordings of "people's music" from all over the world.

In his review for AllMusic, Richie Unterberger said of Trouble in Mind: "[Broonzy] was likely not in peak physical shape by this time, you wouldn't suspect that from the quality of the performances. His vocals are still rich and moving on a relaxed selection of originals and standards". [4] PopMatters' reviewer Patrick Jones found the presentation of the album is encouraging "the listener to interact with the music, to learn about it, and to explore its link to history", and "is a rewarding and culturally enriching experience". [5] Criticism from No Depression noted the novelty of Broonzy's Folkways material as a part of the vogue for "country-turned-urban blues singers as facsimiles of some idealized rural past"; however, it commended the historical significance of the album. [6]

Track listing

  1. "Hey, Hey, Baby" - 2:51
  2. "Frankie and Johnny" - 2:06
  3. "Trouble in Mind" - 3:16
  4. "Joe Turner No.2" - 5:13
  5. "Mule-Ridin' Blues" - 3:42
  6. "When Will I Get to Be Called a Man" - 2:17
  7. "Poor Bill Blues" - 3:12
  8. "Key to the Highway" - 2:32
  9. "Plough-Hand Blues" - 3:24
  10. "Digging My Potatoes" - 2:57
  11. "When Things Go Wrong (It Hurts Me Too)" - 2:57
  12. "C.C. Rider" - 2:32
  13. "Saturday Evening Blues" - 3:32
  14. "Shuffle Rag" - 2:04
  15. "Southbound Train" - 4:48
  16. "Hush, Somebody's Calling Me" - 3:58
  17. "Louise" - 3:58
  18. "Black, Brown and White" (spoken introduction) - 1:25
  19. "Black, Brown and White Blues" - 2:41
  20. "Willie Mae Blues" - 3:27
  21. "This Train" (spoken introduction)" - 1:21
  22. "This Train (Bound for Glory)" - 2:59
  23. "In the Evening" (spoken introduction) - 1:05
  24. "In the Evening When the Sun Goes Down" (introduction) - 4:22

Related Research Articles

<i>Anthology of American Folk Music</i> 1952 compilation album by Various Artists

The Anthology of American Folk Music is a six-album compilation released in 1952 by Folkways Records, comprising eighty-four American folk, blues and country music recordings that were originally issued from 1927 to 1932.

Sonny Terry American Piedmont blues musician

Saunders Teddell, or Saunders Terrell, known as Sonny Terry, was an American Piedmont blues and folk musician, who was known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers and occasionally imitations of trains and fox hunts.

Mike Seeger was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, and pan pipes. Seeger, a half-brother of Pete Seeger, produced more than 30 documentary recordings, and performed in more than 40 other recordings. He desired to make known the caretakers of culture that inspired and taught him.

Victoria Regina Spivey, sometimes known as Queen Victoria, was an American blues singer and songwriter. During a recording career that spanned 40 years, from 1926 to the mid-1960s, she worked with Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Clarence Williams, Luis Russell, Lonnie Johnson, and Bob Dylan. She also performed in vaudeville and clubs, sometimes with her sister Addie "Sweet Peas" Spivey (1910–1943), also known as the Za Zu Girl. Among her compositions are "Black Snake Blues" (1926), "Dope Head Blues" (1927), and "Organ Grinder Blues" (1928). In 1962 she co-founded Spivey Records.

Elizabeth Cotten American blues and folk musician, singer and songwriter

Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten was an American blues and folk musician, singer, and songwriter.

<i>Dust Bowl Ballads</i> 1940 studio album by Woody Guthrie

Dust Bowl Ballads is an album by Woody Guthrie, recorded for Victor Records in Camden, New Jersey in 1940. It was Guthrie's first commercial recording and the most successful album he made. It is considered to be the first or one of the very first concept albums.

"Worried Man Blues" is a folk song in the roots music repertoire. It is catalogued as Roud Folk Song Index No. 4753. Like many folk songs passed by oral tradition, the lyrics vary from version to version, but generally all contain the chorus "It takes a worried man to sing a worried song/It takes a worried man to sing a worried song/I'm worried now, but I won't be worried long." The verses tell the story of a man imprisoned for unknown reasons "I went across the river, and I lay down to sleep/When I woke up, had shackles on my feet", who pines for his lost love, who is "on the train and gone."

Brother John Sellers was an American gospel and folk singer.

Trouble in Mind (song) single by Richard M. Jones

"Trouble in Mind" is a vaudeville blues-style song written by jazz pianist Richard M. Jones. It became an early blues standard, with numerous renditions by a variety of musicians. Although singer Thelma La Vizzo with Jones on piano first recorded the song in 1924, Bertha "Chippie" Hill popularized the song with her 1926 recording with Jones and trumpeter Louis Armstrong. In many versions, new lyrics are added. However, most usually include the well-known verse:

Union Boys

The Union Boys was an American folk music group, formed impromptu in 1944, to record several songs on an album called Songs for Victory: Music for Political Action. Its "all-star leftist" members were Josh White, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Tom Glazer.

<i>The Country Blues</i> 1959 compilation album

The Country Blues is a seminal album released on Folkways Records in 1959, catalogue RF 1. Compiled from 78 recordings by Samuel Charters, it accompanied his book of the same name to provide examples of the music discussed. Both the book and this compilation were key documents in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, and many of its songs would either be incorporated into new compositions by later musicians, or covered outright.

Struggle is an album released by Folkways Records as a vinyl LP in 1976 and as a CD in 1990. It contains recordings by folk artist Woody Guthrie, accompanied on some of the tracks by Cisco Houston and Sonny Terry. Songs on this album are commonly referred to as protest music, songs that are associated with a movement for social change.

Stinson Records was an American record label formed by Herbert Harris and Irving Prosky in 1939, initially to market, in the US, recordings made in the Soviet Union. Between the 1940s and 1960s, it mainly issued recordings of American folk and blues musicians, including Woody Guthrie and Josh White.

Jeff Place is the Grammy-award winning Archivist and Curator at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. He and Anthony Seeger were the first two full-time employees hired in 1987 when the Smithsonian acquired Folkways Records from the estate of Folkways founder Moses Asch.

<i>Lightnin Hopkins</i> (album) 1959 studio album by Lightnin Hopkins

Lightnin' Hopkins is an album by blues musician Lightnin' Hopkins, recorded in 1959 and released on the Folkways label.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Place, Jeff (2000). "Liner notes for Trouble in Mind" (PDF). Smithsonian Folkways . Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  2. 1 2 Lewis, Dave. "Big Bill Broonzy - Biography". AllMusic . Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Trouble in Mind". Smithsonian Folkways. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  4. 1 2 Unterberger, Richie. "Trouble in Mind - Review". AllMusic. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  5. 1 2 Jones, Patrick. "Big Bill Broonzy Trouble in Mind". PopMatters . Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Big Bill Broonzy - Trouble in Mind". No Depression . Retrieved August 12, 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.