Pye Nixa NJE 1015
Nixa Jazz Today Series
7” EP
Recorded 26&27/10/55
TRACKS
Southbound Train
(recorded 26/10/55)
Mindin’ My Own Business
(recorded 27/10/55)
When Will I Get To Be Called A Man?
(recorded 27/10/55)
Partnership Woman
(recorded 27/10/55)
SLEEVE NOTES
In the Autumn of 1955 Big Bill Broonzy, doyen of blues singers and a man big in achievement as well as stature, paid his second visit to Great Britain within three years. Coming at such a time was a happy coincidence, for it was in November, ’55, that the book world saw the publica tion of Broonzy’s autobiography – “Big Bill Blues”. “The reason I’m writing this book” (were Bill’s first words) “is because I think that everybody would like to know the real truth about Negro singing and playing in Mississippi”. In the ensuing 115 pages the old maestro of the blues tells many home truths, plentifully interlarded with ripely recalled anecdotes of a full and colourful musical life.
“Southbound Train”, with orchestral accompaniment, is one of the vast family of railroad blues – a plaintive, melodic strain backed by an implacable, rocking figure for trumpet and saxophones.
“Partnership Woman” is a good, lusty blues drawn from life – menage à trois described in detail in the Broonzy autobiography.
Homely philosophy is the keynote of “Mindin’ My Own Business”, whose amusing lyrics are a fairly faithful reflect tion of this sage old countryman’s “live and let live” attitude.
“When Will I Get To Be Called A Man” is of the same genre as Bill’s well known “Black, Brown and White”, a folksy social commentary which touches one aspect of race relations in the United States – that paternalism and condescension towards Negroes which is a hang-over of the bad old days of slavery when coloured people enjoyed neither civic rights nor social standing. As Bill himself puts it: “They call all Negro men ‘boys’ and some of them is old enough to be their father. In fact I do think that some old men is glad to be called boys, but they call you so until you get to be fifty, and at the time you would appreciate to be called a boy they start to call you ‘uncle’.”
PERSONNEL
Sleeve:
Ian Bradbery (design)
Recording:
Eric Tomlinson and Joe Meek (balance)
Denis Preston (supervision)
Nixa Jazz Today 