by Paul

Big Bill Broonzy and Pete Seeger in Concert
Recorded 1956. 1965 LP



In October 1956, Big Bill Broonzy and Pete Seeger gave a two man concert
at the Northwestern University which was als They made an excellent team.

Big Bill Broonzy was then 63 years of age and had been a performer from
the 1920s putting out his first recording in 1927. Primarily a "blues"
player in the folk tradition; by 1956, he had become highly successful
and had recently toured Europe to great acclaim. He had started his
music as a fiddle player but moved on to the 12-string guitar and is
often credited with "Leadbelly" as being responsible for popularising
that instrument within the folk movement. He certainly knew how to
play! Sadly, he died within two years of this concert..

Pete Seeger was a relative youngster at 37 years of age but had
performed and written songs since the 1940s and had been a member of
"The Almanac Singers" then becoming the "The Weavers". He would go on to
considerable success with the folk revival boom including tours of many
countries where he continued to successfully promote folk music both
traditional and commercial. He did much to popularise the long-necked
five-string banjo but also played a range of other instruments including
the 12 string guitar.

The pair made an excellent team with their contrasting styles, songs and
techniques. Pete Seeger did much of the speaking about folk music,
instruments and songs whereas Broonzy is somewhat less loquacious but
far more humourous. In fact, it was at this concert that Broonzy made
the statement often erroneously attributed to Louis Armstrong, namely,
"All the songs I ever heard in my life was folk songs. I never heard
horses sing none of them yet!" (intro to track 4) Even without the
singing the performance of these two is entertaining.

This LP was produced in 1965 on the Verve Folkways label (not to be
confused with the Folkways label which eventually forced Verve Records
to drop the word "Folkways" from their name) using the 1956 recordings.
I understand that only selected portions of the concert appear on the LP
possibly due to poor recordings of other parts. The LP lists 11 tracks
but there is a twelfth (spoken) track featuring Seegar suggesting that
everyone can have a five-minute Zup party. The tracks are Broonzy and
Seegar both singing "Midnight Special"; Broonzy performing "Backwater
Blues", This Train is Bound for Glory", "Crawdad Hole", "The Glory of
Love", "Willie Mae", "Why Don't You come Home, Bill Bailey" and
"Alberta"; and Seeger sings "Green Corn", "Mrs McGrath", and plays two
instrumentals - "Hillel Instrumental" (tootin' cane), and the lengthy,
but very entertaining, "Goofin' Off Suite". Graphics of the LP cover
and the rear are included in the download.

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With Best wishes from Paul the Stockman from
http://australianfolk.blogspot.com/


Thank you Paul :)