When Did You Leave Heaven?

Big Bill Broonzy sings sooooo beautifully. Enjoy his careful phrasing and subtle guitar accompaniment on this film clip from “Low Lights and Blue Smoke.”

And on these songs, from the film “A Musical Journey: The Films of Pete, Toshi and Dan Seeger.”

Pete Seeger: “This is the last time Big Bill Broonzy ever sang. The following day he got operated on for cancer, and he didn’t have a voice from then on. This was a little place called Circle Pines Camp in Western Michigan, and that’s his own guitar he’s playing, he brought it with him. He said to me, ‘Pete, you got that camera with you?’ I had told him I wanted to film him sometime. I said, ‘Yeah, I have it with me.’ He says, ‘Well, you better film me now, I’m going to go under the knife tomorrow.’ ”

Irrelevant aside: I was at an LRY conference at Circle Pines Camp in August of 1975. Amazing.