Big Bill Broonzy - Trouble In Mind live [Colourised] 1956

Here's the legendary Big Bill Broonzy live in Italy sometime in the 50's. Bill released a live LP from Italy in 1956 so I'm assuming this film is from around that time? In 1955 he toured worldwide, traveling to Africa, South America, the Pacific region, and across Europe into early 1956.
If anyones got anymore info let me know in the comments.

It wasn't the best quality footage to colourise from but its Big Bill so always worth the effort! If anyone can find a good quality B&W version please let me know and I'll revisit this. I also had to resync the audio a little on this one.

Big Bill Broonzy was born William Lee Conley Broonzy in the tiny town of Scott, Mississippi, just across the river from Arkansas. During his childhood, Broonzy's family moved to Pine Bluff to work the fields there. Broonzy learned to play a cigar box fiddle from his uncle, and as a teenager, he played violin in local churches, at community dances, and in a country string band. During World War I, Broonzy enlisted in the U.S. Army, and in 1920, moved to Chicago and worked in the factories. In 1924, he met Papa Charlie Jackson, a New Orleans native and pioneer blues recording artist for Paramount. Jackson took Broonzy under his wing, taught him guitar, and used him as an accompanist.

Broonzy's entire first session at Paramount in 1926 was rejected, but he returned in November 1927 and succeeded in getting his first record, House Rent Stomp, onto Paramount wax. As one of his early records came out with the garbled moniker of Big Bill Broomsley, he decided to shorten his recording name to Big Bill, and this served as his handle on records until after the second World War. Among aliases used for Big Bill on his early releases were Big Bill Johnson, Sammy Sampson, and Slim Hunter.

In 1930, the Hokum Boys broke up, and Georgia Tom Dorsey decided to keep the act going by bringing in Big Bill and guitarist Frank Brasswell to replace Tampa Red, billing themselves as "the Famous Hokum Boys." With Georgia Tom and Brasswell, Broonzy hit his stride and penned his first great blues original, "I Can't Be Satisfied." This was a hit and helped make his name with record companies. Although only half-a-dozen blues artists made any records during 1932, the worst year in the 20th century for the record business, one of them was Big Bill, who made 20 issued sides that year.

When promoter John Hammond sought a traditional blues singer to perform at one of his Spirituals to Swing concerts held at Carnegie Hall in New York City, he was looking for Robert Johnson to foot the bill. Hammond learned that Johnson had recently died, and as a result, Big Bill got the nod to appear at Carnegie Hall on 5th February, 1939. In the early '40s, Big Bill appeared at the Café Society, the Village Vanguard, and the Apollo Theater, in addition to touring with Lil Greenwood, all of which kept Big Bill busy during the AFM recording ban. Big Bill continued to record for labels ranging from majors Columbia and Mercury to fly-by-nights such as Hub and RPM. In 1949, Broonzy decided to take some time off from music and got a job working as a janitor at the Iowa State University of Science & Technology in Ames.

In 1951, Broonzy was sought out by DJ and writer Studs Terkel and appeared in the latter's concert series I Come for to Sing. Suddenly, Broonzy started to get a lot of press attention, and by September of that year, he was in Paris recording for French Vogue. On this occasion, Broonzy was finally able to wax his tune "Black, Brown and White," a song about race relations that had been in his book for years, but every record company he had ever sung it for had turned it down. In Europe, Broonzy proved incredibly popular, more so than at any time in the United States. Two separate documentary films were made on his life, in France and Belgium, respectively, and from 1951 until ill health finally put him out of the running in the fall of 1957, Broonzy nearly doubled his own 1927-1949 output in terms of new recordings.

In June 1956, Broonzy began to feel "frazzled", explaining to Pim Van Isveldt that "his nerves might be bad". From 1956-57, as he was performing his last tour in Europe, his condition worsened, and he was diagnosed with cancer in July 1957. Broonzy made his last recordings in Chicago from July 12 to 14, 1957
On the 14th or 15th August, 1958, Broonzy sadly died in an ambulance from cancer as he was being rushed to Billings Hospital from his home.

#colourised #bluesincolour #blueslegend #blues #bluesmusic #bluesmusician #bluespianist #bluespiano #bluessinger #bluessongsofalltime #bluessong #chicagoblues #bluesguitar #bluesguitarist #bluesguitarlesson #bluesguitars #bluespiano #deltablues #mississippiblues