Song of the Week: Big Bill Broonzy - Looking For My Baby

Listen - Big Bill Broonzy performs Looking For My Baby

Big Bill Broonzy was born in the late 1800s in Mississippi. He started recording in 1928 and didn't stop until his death (which usually stops most recordings by an artist) thirty years later. Big Bill Broonzy recorded such staples as I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts of Town, CC Rider and, of course, his most famous song, Key To The Highway, but somehow he is not considered a luminary like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf or Robert Johnson. It's not for lack of musicianship as his guitar skills were magnificent.

We listen today to his 1941 recording of his original song,  Looking For My Baby. Cool guitar refrains and menacing lyrics mark this warbly recording for Okeh Records. Enjoy. 

Song of the Week: "Burr Clover Farm Blues", Muddy Waters

Listen - Muddy Waters performs Burr Clover Farm Blues.

On a sweltering hot morning in 1941 a large, green Buick Century rolled out of Yazoo City, Mississippi around 8am. Just like it had done for three weeks now, the large sedan with Washington DC plates cut out through the Mississippi Delta on a mission. Enola. Patosi. A brief stop in Holly Bluff for a cup of coffee and the obligatory question that defined the mission. The car turned onto Mclaurin Street past the dusty farm town of Rolling Fork, Mississippi and turned north on highway 61 towards Clarksdale.

It was almost noon when the two occupants -- one white, one black -- pulled into a small store called the Stovall Commissary. It was run by the one farm in town that employed everyone, housed everyone, sold the only goods available, doubled as the post office and served the only liquor for miles around at the on-site juke joint. It was the Stovall Plantation. The drivers of the car walked inside, their hard soled shoes making an echo on the wooden floor. The man behind the counter eyed the strangers closely as the clerk asked if he could help them. "Well, we're hoping maybe you can. You see we're looking for man goes by the name of Robert Johnson," said the caucasian man. "A blues musician who cut some records a couple-few years back. Said to be from these parts," added the other passenger. The clerk thought for a second. "I don't recall no Robert Johnson 'round these parts, no sirs."

The two strangers already knew the answer. It was the same they got wherever they went. The clerk continued. "What'cha looking for him for? He owe you money or something?" The visitors gave a polite chuckle and said "no, nothing like that. It's just that we're from the Library of Congress up in Washington DC, and we're making field recordings of blues musicians from around these parts." The clerk livened up a bit. "Well, sorry I can't help you with old Mr. Johnson, but we've got some pretty good musicians here on Stovall. Guitarists, fiddle players, you name it. Doing some playing tonight. Y'all ought to stay and listen. And maybe somebody know your fellow that you are all looking for."

It had already been a long day and the two visitors took him up on his suggestion. They checked into separate rooms above the Commissary and waited for the night to fall and the heat to abate. When the work day was done the Commissary began to fill with workers cashing their checks on this sweltering Friday evening and drinking grape Nehis. The two wanderers came down and began to ask their question of Mr. Johnson's whereabouts. Some knew him. Some claimed to have seen him just a few months ago. Others said the kid was dead. One even claimed to be Robert Johnson himself. Another dead end. Then a tall balding man with a dirty white shirt and suspenders sat down and began to play the fiddle. When he was done with the first song, one of the historians asked the musicians name. "Son". "Son House?" asked the historian. "No. Son Simms" was the response. "You play with anyone? A guitarist or a singer?" Of course he did. He sent a young boy down to a ramshackle house to go get Simms' friend and musical partner. "And tell him to bring his guitar" was Simms final call to the kid. Not long after a powerfully built young man with sleepy eyes and a devilish smile walked slowly onto the long porch. He wore white shoes and a long sleeve black work shirt. He held in his right arm a wood and steel National guitar. "What's all the hub-bub, Son?" "These here men are from Washington DC, they want to hear some music."

The guitarist sat to the left of Son Sims and looked at the ground for a bit. "How 'bout we do Burr Clover Farm Blues?" The guitarist had clearly been studying at the proverbial feet of Robert Johnson and elder-statesman Son House. The style was undeniable. But the lead lines on the guitar were more stark and boiled down to the core melody of the song. The two historians smiled broadly to each other now. They hadn't found Robert Johnson, but they had something here on the Stovall Plantation. "I'm sorry," said the caucasian historian, Alan Lomax, "but I don't think we got your name." "They call me Muddy Waters" was the short response. The historians asked if Muddy Waters would come over to the back of their car. He warily followed the men to the back of the Buick where they opened up the trunk to reveal a 300 pound "portable" recording machine. "You think we could record that song you just did?" asked the black historian, John Work III. Muddy Waters sat down with his friend Son Simms now picking up a 2nd guitar. The field historians asked everyone to please be quiet. Pressed a button and counted down to Muddy Waters. Waters began to play his own composition, the first recording he would ever make.

Song of the Week: "Preaching Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)", Robert Johnson

Just behind baseball historians, musicologists hold the title of most likely to turn their subjects into superheroes. The ideal candidate for the musicologist is a ghost. A musician who quietly walks into a juke joint, sits down and starts plying his trade in front of a loud and hostile crowd. In a striking moment he quiets the sundry ne'er-do-wells (usually bringing tears to the eyes of the most hardened men and stealing the heart of the most faithful girl). Then the ghost mutates into the warm mist of the night with just his instrument and the satisfaction that he is the best ghost musician in these here parts. "Who was that masked musician?" one breathless woman asks with idolatry coloring her voice. A skittish little bug-eyed man in overalls responds, "That was no ord'nary muse-ishin'. Not like any other we know, at least. That there was the devil himself."

Welcome to the over-legend of one Mr. Robert Johnson. So little is known about the exceptionally talented itinerant musician that he becomes the perfect blank canvass for musicologist and folklorist who have been unable to control their urge to paint the canvass with their own skewed palette. The prevailing myth of Johnson is that he puppy-dogged Charlie Patton and Son House around the Mississippi delta trying to learn all he could from the two masters. But he was shun for his lack of talent and over eager ways and sent packing. Soon after, on a warm summer night in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the young man crossed paths with the devil (disguised as a man) who took the Gibson guitar, re-tuned it, played a beautiful song on the flat-top box, and asked if Johnson wanted it back. In his affirmative response, Johnson had sold his soul to the devil down at the Crossroads in exchange for becoming the greatest musician ever.

This, of course, is pure rubbish. The few known facts of Robert Johnson's life are quite ordinary. The musicianship, quite extraordinary. Robert Johnson was probably born in or near Tunica, Mississippi some time around May, 1912. He died on August 16, 1938 in Greenwood, Mississippi. His death certificate, signed by a white plantation owner, lists syphilis as his cause of death. This is a little suspect as the person who signed this never met him and certainly didn't perform an autopsy on his body. In addition, assigning "syphillis" as a cause of death to young black men in that day was extremely common and not always accurate. Eye-witnesses (credible and incredible) and rumors suggest he was poisoned by a jealous boyfriend and died an agonizing death over a two-day period. We'll never know for sure. Twenty-six short years, 29 recordings, two recording sessions in Texas, two photographs. That's all we really know for sure. 

Our SOTW, this week, is Johnson's stellar Preaching Blues (Up Jumped the Devil). One listen should be all you need to understand why so much legend has built up around the man. The open E (actually Eb) tune is a wonderful showcase for Johnson's precision slide work, his impressive right-hand percussive strumming technique and his ability to change tempos to add tension to certain moments in the song. The song should be entered into the records as Exhibit A when trying the case of Robert Johnson, guitarist v. the rest of the blues guitarist to ever perform. Johnson makes constant subtle changes to his main riff without ever changing the substance of it. For example, compare his playing of the main riff at :07 with the riff at 1:22 and his still different riff starting at 1:29. Or note how he breaks from the 12-bar normative structure of the song by adding or subtracting bars for affect. Such as when he adds ten seconds of turnarounds at 1:07 to cover his spoken word part. And again, he adds bars at 1:59 as he implores himself to "do it now" and sits back and lets us hear his wonderful percussive right hand slap a syncopated rhythm. Bottom line, the itinerant young man was a master of his instrument. A person who had an intuitive understanding of what was possible. A man who was not contained by the norms of his day. A man who pioneered new ground. A man who progressed so quickly and so much further than those around him that it led people to start rumors -- in his day -- that he had sold his soul to the devil to become the best guitarist in the land. A rumor he appeared to embrace as the subtitle of this song would suggest. 

Now stop and listen to the same song. But don't listen to the Robert Johnson, the master guitarist. Listen to Robert Johnson the singer. He was a singer with tremendous range and tremendous power in his voice. He sings a smooth melody, often breaking into spoken word in mid-sentence, over the staccato guitar riff. (No matter how hard I worked, I would never be able to sing that melody over that guitar riff. In my head, with my abilities, the two just can't be done together. But they obviously can.) The 25 year-old Johnson sings with a passion usually not associated with a man of youth. At the tail end of the 2nd verse, at around 1:16, Johnson lets out a one-syllable howl that lets you understand in no uncertain terms the honesty of his blues. No matter what language, no matter what year you heard this, you can comprehend his deep anguish. The anguish of a man who moans like he knows his death is just days away. Then a two-part spoken interlude that sounds like it comes from two different voices. "Yes. Preach 'em now".

"Yes the blues is a low down achin' disease. Like consumption, killing me by degrees. I can study rain, oh, ohhh drive, oh, oh drive my blues. I been studyin' the rain and I'm gonna drive my blues away. Going to the distillery, stay out there all day."

Take away the ghost, the spirit and the lore which ultimately diminishes Johnson's real skills by focusing attention elsewhere, and we are left with the single most important figure in the entire genre of blues. A man whose massive skills continues to cast a shadow over blues, jazz and rock to this day. Robert Johnson, the man. Not Robert Johnson the ghost. That's all you need.