About the session: Blues singer and guitarist Big Bill Broonzy (1893–1958) was a major figure in Chicago in the 1930s and '40s and brought his music to European audiences in the early 1950s. Alan Lomax, who held Broonzy in high esteem, had spent time with him in Chicago and recorded him at the Decca studios in New York in 1946 (see the Blues In the Mississippi Night Interview collection). In 1952 he and Big Bill met again in Paris, where Alan was on a research trip to the Musee L'Homme, and recorded two hours of songs and conversation on Black pride, American racism, and the blues as commercial popular music.