Subject: RE: Broonzy's "horses singin'" proven true!!
From:
Art Thieme
Date: 30 Dec 02 - 07:36 PM
Hi folks,
It was BIG BILL BROONZY who was the original source for the oft misquoted and mis-attributed line about all songs being folksongs because, "Hell, I ain't never heard no horses singing !!"
The man himself, BIG BILL BROONZY, was very important to us in Chicago. I only heard him one time though. After recording behind many, many, many blues singers to "fill out" their recorded sound, his guitar wizardry was recognized as, simply, the best. His blues were unique and perfect. His chords were created on the spot by him and truly did smack of jazz in their harmonic complexity. When he got into the emerging folk scene in Chicago, Bill explored that new way to augment his income by adding songs like "The Crawdad Song", "John Henry", "The Glory Of Love", "Frog Went a-Courting" and others. Bill wound up living his last years in Chicago where he worked as a janitor for (I think) The Chicago Public Schools. Check out Bill's "Mopper's Blues" which was about his daily chores. Bill Broonzy was very much appreciated by the early folkies like Win Stracke, Frank Hamilton, Dawn and Nate Greening and Gert Soltker --- all founders of the Old Town School Of FOLK MUSIC. Studs Terkel made him a part of his early TV show called Studs Place, and the two of them (Studs and Bill) made several albums from interview shows hosted by Mr. Terkel on his daily radio programs broadcast over WFMT-FM in Chicago. Several LPs of those shows were issued on Folkways Records. VERVE RECORDS issued a SEVEN album boxed set of Bill and Studs talking and drinking (and Bill singing). Later, these were issued as single albums without the talk---just Bill's songs.
Studs and Frank Hamilton are still going.
That's why all this about "horses singing". Now we have proof of some sort. As Pete used to say, "There're lies, damned lies and statistics. That's what makes "HORSE" races !"
Always seems to come back to them horses, don't it ???
Art Thieme
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sj
