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| Later days, I'm guessing. |
“’He treated his life story as a set of fluid possibilities, as opposed to fixed events,’ Riesman says. ‘And his imaginative powers were formidable. As Studs Terkel said, “Bill is telling the truth — his truth.”’”
- National Public Radio retrospective, 2011
In other words, everything I’m about to tell you about Big Bill Broonzy could be a lie, but at least it’s a good one. There’s a main narrative, then a counter-narrative reconstructed by Broonzy’s biographer Bob Riesman, who most sources quote extensively. Also, most of them misspell Riesman’s name as "Reisman." The ground is thin, in other words, but let’s walk it anyway.
The man who became Big Bill Broonzy was born somewhere between 1893 and 1903. Some sources insert “Broonzy” as a final surname, some don’t, but they all agree on some variation on Lee Conley Bradley for a birth name, while also generally agreeing he did not have a twin sister (Laney, by name). Other stories from his early life - e.g., serving in World War I (of which, I’m still on maybe), and moving to the Mississippi Delta region during a flood, etc. - are generally read as thoughts he borrowed to serve as memories of his own; a site called broonzy.com pushes that line the hardest. One story supported by two sources claims he made a fiddle from a cigar box as a teenager and played picnics with a young guitarist named Louise Carter - segregated picnics, according to Wikipedia. In a fun twist, a couple sources say Broonzy learned to play his improvised fiddle from an uncle named Jerry Belcher, a man Riesman doesn’t think ever existed. Now, moving on to things that most sources agree on…
Big Bill Broonzy did start on the fiddle. There’s also general agreement that he left music behind, married, and worked as a sharecropper in the fields around Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The story of how he got back into music starts 1) with something his wife, Gertrude, did and 2) makes most sense in the context of him serving in World War I. Sometime before the Great War, but also after or during a drought that devastated his farming plot, someone offered Broonzy $50, a new violin and $14 dollars in tips to perform at a three-day picnic(!?); the sources that mention the story agree that Gertrude spent the money before he got his advance, which forced him to play the picnic. A site called culturalequity.org fleshed out that story the best, while also noting a period of inactivity from (circa) 1918 to Broonzy moving to Chicago in 1920 - and without a wife. So, again, I’m inclined to accept that Broonzy might have served in Europe (also, culturalequity felt like the best source; read that in full for the most thorough history).
- National Public Radio retrospective, 2011
In other words, everything I’m about to tell you about Big Bill Broonzy could be a lie, but at least it’s a good one. There’s a main narrative, then a counter-narrative reconstructed by Broonzy’s biographer Bob Riesman, who most sources quote extensively. Also, most of them misspell Riesman’s name as "Reisman." The ground is thin, in other words, but let’s walk it anyway.
The man who became Big Bill Broonzy was born somewhere between 1893 and 1903. Some sources insert “Broonzy” as a final surname, some don’t, but they all agree on some variation on Lee Conley Bradley for a birth name, while also generally agreeing he did not have a twin sister (Laney, by name). Other stories from his early life - e.g., serving in World War I (of which, I’m still on maybe), and moving to the Mississippi Delta region during a flood, etc. - are generally read as thoughts he borrowed to serve as memories of his own; a site called broonzy.com pushes that line the hardest. One story supported by two sources claims he made a fiddle from a cigar box as a teenager and played picnics with a young guitarist named Louise Carter - segregated picnics, according to Wikipedia. In a fun twist, a couple sources say Broonzy learned to play his improvised fiddle from an uncle named Jerry Belcher, a man Riesman doesn’t think ever existed. Now, moving on to things that most sources agree on…
Big Bill Broonzy did start on the fiddle. There’s also general agreement that he left music behind, married, and worked as a sharecropper in the fields around Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The story of how he got back into music starts 1) with something his wife, Gertrude, did and 2) makes most sense in the context of him serving in World War I. Sometime before the Great War, but also after or during a drought that devastated his farming plot, someone offered Broonzy $50, a new violin and $14 dollars in tips to perform at a three-day picnic(!?); the sources that mention the story agree that Gertrude spent the money before he got his advance, which forced him to play the picnic. A site called culturalequity.org fleshed out that story the best, while also noting a period of inactivity from (circa) 1918 to Broonzy moving to Chicago in 1920 - and without a wife. So, again, I’m inclined to accept that Broonzy might have served in Europe (also, culturalequity felt like the best source; read that in full for the most thorough history).
