Bob Riesman

An excellent biography of an important American musician. The research effort was excellent, the writing's competent, and the analysis is definitely worth the price of admission.

The first few chapters are spent disentangling what Broonzy claimed about his childhood and youth from the actual facts. The two are similar enough to make you wonder why Big Bill needed a "creation story"--yet they're different enough to make the author's effort worthwhile. Then the musician arrives in Chicago and the story's more straightforward; Riesman tracks him through gigs and recording sessions and friendships through the 20s and 30s. He then explores Broonzy's performance changes as his audience changes; he began as a musician mostly performing for black folks, then transformed himself into a folk music icon playing mostly for white folks in the US and Europe. Both the descriptions of his musical practice and of the changes in that practice are well done, and definitely interesting reading.

Many folks of some interest to this reader are introduced with short biographical sketches. These are less intrusive than similar sketches found in other books I've read on these topics. And there's a lot of material about how he found mentors when he was young, and how he mentored the next generation of Chicago blues musicians.

The book's treatment of Broonzy's family life is less satisfactory, mostly because the author wasn't able to settle such issues as how many times his subject married or how many children he had. Big Bill clearly remained close to his Arkansas mother and siblings, even after he moved away. That the musician had three marriages and two or three marriage-like relationships is clear, and although it's not examined it appears that he had many casual flings. Less certain is how literally to take Bill's claims about having five children. The book touches on these things, but the ambiguities are not resolved.

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I complained in my comments about Ronald Cohen's Rainbow Quest about that author's centering his story too heavily on Pete Seeger and Izzy Young. This book, which somewhat overlaps Cohen's, shows why that emphasis is misleading; Riesman's telling of how the folk revival came to Chicago is more convincing that Cohen's. Pete and Izzy were important players in the national story, but there were local players virtually everywhere whose contributions were essential to the revival. That book doesn't properly credit the local enthusiasts; this book does.… (mais)