Question: How is musician William Lee Conley better known?
Answer: Big Bill Broonzy


Big Bill Broonzy, Blues Musician from Scott Mississippi
William Lee Conley Broonzy: A Biography
By Anton Duck (SHS)
Anton Duck (SHS Researcher)
William Lee Conley Broonzy, one of the masters of country blues, was born in Scott, Mississippi, on June 26, 1893.  However, one source says Broonzy had a twin sister name Lannie Broonzy, who says  she has proof that she was born in 1898, on June 26. This information would have proved that Broonzy was five years younger than he pretended. Big Bill was the son of Frank Broonzy and Mittie Belcher, who had seventeen other children (Bruynoghe 9).  During this time period, many black men added years to their age either to get a job or join the military, so the exact date of Broonzy’s  birth is not clear (Barnwell 317).
Broonzy’s life as a child was hard because he received only minimal schooling. He had to quit school to help his sharecropping family around the house. Before he moved to Arkansas, Broonzy learned how to play the fiddle from his uncle Jerry Belcher. At the age of fourteen, he started working for tips at country dances, picnics, and he played for the church (Broonzy). During the years 1912-1917, Broonzy worked part time as a preacher and violinist.
Then Broonzy served in the US Army during World War I. After his discharge, he returned back to Arkansas. This is the time when he decided that farming was not what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. He wanted to make his living as a guitar player and singer. In 1924, Broonzy moved to Chicago to start his music career  partly because of all the racism that was happening in the South. Under the guidance of Papa Charlie Jackson, Broonzy learned how to play the guitar. In the 1930’s Broonzy became known as one of the major artists on the Chicago Blues scene. During this time he performed with other top blues artist in Chicago– like Memphis Minnie, Tampa Red, Jazz Gillum, Lonnie Johnson, and John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson. Also, while trying to make it in the music business, he worked as a janitor and maintenance man (Big Bill Broonzy).
In 1938 Broonzy performed at John Hammond’s famous Spiritual and Swing concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City. This was the first time that he had ever performed in front of a white audience. After the concert,  people started calling him “Big Bill” Broonzy.  At this time Broonzy received  newfound fame as the father of Chicago blues.(Broonzy). He was one of the best known blues players and recorded over 260 blues songs including Feelin’ Low Down, Remember Big Bill, Make Me Getaway, and Big Bill Broonzy Sings Country Blues (Brewer 15).  His recording career spanned five long decades  as he traveled from Mississippi to Chicago and even to Europe, where he became well-known.  There are forty-two of his albums still available (Cox 113).
After the arrival of artists like Muddy Waters and the playing of the electric guitar, Broonzy’s  brand of blues was pushed aside. Rather than retire, he changed his style of music to folk blues. In 1951, Broonzy toured Europe where he performed standard blues, traditional folk tunes, and spirituals to appreciative audiences. The following year Broonzy returned to Europe with pianist Blind John Davis. He opened the doors for other American blues artists to tour there as well.  In 1955, with the help of writer Yannick Bruynoghe, he told the story of his life in the book Big Bill Broonzy. This book was originally published in London. Big Bill Broonzy’s  book was one of the first autobiographies by a blues man (Big Bill Broonzy). In 1957, William Lee Conley Broonzy was diagnosed with throat cancer. He continued to perform, although he had with great pain, until he died of throat cancer on August 15, 1958. In 1980, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame (Cox 113).
1893 Born in Scott, Mississippi, on June 26
1899 learned how to play the fiddle
1905 Started playing for the church, picnics, country dances
moved to Arkansas

Big Bill Broonzy Discography at Discogs
Born on June 26, 1893 in Scott County, Mississippi.
Died on August 15, 1958, Chicago.
In the 1930’s Broonzy became known as one of the major artist on the Chicago Blues scene. During this time he performed with other top blues artists in Chicago such as l Memphis Minnie, Tampa Red, Jazz Gillum, Lonnie Johnson, and John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson.
In 1938, Broonzy performed at John Hammond’s famous Spiritual and Swing concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City. This was the first time that he had ever performed in front of a white audience. After the concert, people start calling him “Big Bill” Broonzy.
He was one of the best known blues players and recorded over 260 blues songs, including Feelin’ Low Down, Remember Big Bill, Make Me Getaway, and Big Bill Broonzy Sings Country Blues. His recording career spanned five long decades, as he traveled from Mississippi to Chicago and even to Europe, where he became well-known.
He died of throat cancer in 1958.
In 1980, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame.
Sites:

Big Bill Broonzy | American musician | Britannica.com
American musician
Alternative Title: William Lee Conley Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy, byname of William Lee Conley Broonzy (born June 26, 1893, Scott, Miss., U.S.—died Aug. 14, 1958, Chicago , Ill.), American blues singer and guitarist who represented a tradition of itinerant folk blues.
Broonzy
Frank Driggs Collection/© Archive Photos
Broonzy grew up in Arkansas . He served in the army (1918–19) and moved to Chicago in 1920, where six years later he made his recording debut as guitar accompanist to black blues singers. Later he became a singer himself and by 1940 was recognized as one of the best-selling blues recording artists. His New York City concert debut was made at Carnegie Hall in 1938. In 1951 he visited Europe and soon became popular across that continent. At the height of his popularity in 1957, his vocal effectiveness was reduced by a lung operation, and he died the following year of cancer. Many students of the blues have found his work almost as fascinating for its sociological as for its strictly musical content. His mother, who was born a slave, died in 1957 at the age of 102, having survived to see Broonzy become a world-famous figure. His autobiography, Big Bill Blues, appeared in 1955.
Learn More in these related articles:

Big Bill Broonzy | Biography & History | AllMusic
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Artist Biography                             by Uncle Dave Lewis
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 -- itinerant sharecroppers and the descendants of ex-slaves -- 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 he moved to Chicago and worked in the factories for several years. 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 .
Broonzy 's earliest records do not demonstrate real promise, but this would soon change. 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 history of the record business, one of them was Big Bill , who made 20 issued sides that year.
Through Georgia Tom and Tampa Red , Big Bill met Memphis Minnie and toured as her second guitarist in the early '30s, but apparently did not record with her. When he did resume recording in March 1934 it was for Bluebird's newly established Chicago studio under the direction of Lester Melrose . Melrose liked Broonzy 's style, and before long, Big Bill would begin working as Melrose 's unofficial second-in-command, auditioning artists, matching numbers to performers, booking sessions, and providing backup support to other musicians. He played on literally hundreds of records for Bluebird in the late '30s and into the '40s, including those made by his half-brother, Washboard Sam , Peter Chatman (aka Memphis Slim ), John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, and others. With Melrose , Broonzy helped develop the "Bluebird beat," connoting a type of popular blues record that incorporated trap drums and upright string bass. This was the precursor of the "Maxwell Street sound" or "postwar Chicago blues," and helped to redefine the music in a format that would prove popular in the cities. Ironically, while Broonzy was doing all this work for Melrose at Bluebird, his own recordings as singer were primarily made for ARC, and later Columbia's subsidiary Okeh. This was his greatest period, and during this time Broonzy wrote and recorded such songs as "Key to the Highway," "W.P.A. Blues," "All by Myself," and "Unemployment Stomp." For other artists, Broonzy wrote songs such as "Diggin' My Potatoes." All told, Big Bill Broonzy had a hand in creating more than 100 original songs.
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 February 5, 1939. This appearance was very well received, and earned Broonzy a role in George Seldes' 1939 film Swingin' the Dream alongside Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman . 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. By the mid- to late '40s, the operation in Chicago with Melrose had finally begun to wind down, just as electric blues started to heat up. 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.
Broonzy updated his act by adding traditional folk songs to his set, along the lines of what Josh White and Leadbelly had done in then-recent times. He took a tremendous amount of flak for doing so, as blues purists condemned Broonzy for turning his back on traditional blues style in order to concoct shows that were appealing to white tastes. But this misses the point of his whole life's work: Broonzy was always about popularizing blues, and he was the main pioneer in the entrepreneurial spirit as it applies to the field. His songwriting, producing, and work as a go-between with Lester Melrose is exactly the sort of thing that Willie Dixon would do with Chess in the '50s. This was the part of his career that Broonzy himself valued most highly, and his latter-day fame and popularity were a just reward for a life spent working so hard on behalf of his given discipline and fellow musicians. It would be a short reward, though; just about the time the autobiography he had written with Yannick Bruynoghe, Big Bill Blues, appeared in 1955, he learned he had throat cancer. Big Bill Broonzy died at age 65 in August, 1958, and left a recorded legacy which, in sheer size and depth, well exceeds that of any blues artist born on his side of the year 1900.

BIG BILL BROONZY (7/22/1953) | 98.7WFMT
BIG BILL BROONZY (7/22/1953)
By WFMT | 2016-05-13T10:09:06+00:00 June 10th, 2016| Best of Studs Terkel |
The Chicago Blues Festival begins this weekend, and so this evening the BEST OF STUDS TERKEL features the legendary American bluesman, William Lee Conley Broonzy – better known as Big Bill. First heard on WFMT on July 22, 1953, this musical conversation between Studs and Big Bill Broonzy is one of the very earliest Studs Terkel Program broadcasts in our archives.
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