Brownie McGhee's
death in 1996 was an enormous loss in the blues field. Although he had
been semi-retired and suffering from stomach cancer, the guitarist was
still the leading Piedmont-style bluesman on the planet, venerated
worldwide for his prolific activities both on his own and with his
longtime partner, blind harpist Sonny Terry. Together, McGhee and Terry
worked for decades in an acoustic folk-blues bag, singing ancient
ditties like "John Henry" and "Pick a Bale of Cotton" for appreciative
audiences worldwide. But McGhee
was capable of a great deal more. Throughout the immediate postwar era,
he cut electric blues and R&B on the New York scene, even enjoying a
huge R&B hit in 1948 with "My Fault" for Savoy (Hal "Cornbread" Singer handled tenor sax duties on the 78).
Walter Brown McGhee
grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. He contracted polio at the age of
four, which left him with a serious limp and plenty of time away from
school to practice the guitar chords that he'd learned from his father,
Duff McGhee. Brownie's
younger brother, Granville McGhee, was also a talented guitarist who
later hit big with the romping "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee"; he earned
his nickname, "Stick," by pushing his crippled sibling around in a small
cart propelled by a stick.
A 1937 operation sponsored by the March of Dimes restored most of McGhee's
mobility. Off he went as soon as he recovered, traveling and playing
throughout the Southeast. His jaunts brought him into contact with
washboard player George "Oh Red" (or "Bull City Red") Washington in 1940, who in turn introduced McGhee to talent scout J.B. Long. Long got him a recording contract with OKeh/Columbia in 1940; his debut session in Chicago produced a dozen tracks over two days.
Long's principal blues artist, Blind Boy Fuller, died in 1941, precipitating Okeh issuance of some of McGhee's early efforts under the sobriquet of Blind Boy Fuller No. 2. McGhee cut a moving tribute song, "Death of Blind Boy Fuller," shortly afterward. McGhee's third marathon session for OKeh in 1941 paired him for the first time on shellac with whooping harpist Terry for "Workingman's Blues."
The pair resettled in New York in 1942. They quickly got connected with the city's burgeoning folk music circuit, working with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Leadbelly. After the end of World War II, McGhee began to record most prolifically, both with and without Terry,
for a myriad of R&B labels: Savoy (where he cut "Robbie Doby
Boogie" in 1948 and "New Baseball Boogie" the next year), Alert, London,
Derby, Sittin' in With, and its Jax subsidiary in 1952, Jackson, Bobby Robinson's Red Robin logo (1953), Dot, and Harlem, before crossing over to the folk audience during the late '50s with Terry at his side. One of McGhee's last dates for Savoy in 1958 produced the remarkably contemporary "Living with the Blues," with Roy Gaines and Carl Lynch blasting away on lead guitars and a sound light years removed from the staid folk world.
McGhee and Terry
were among the first blues artists to tour Europe during the '50s, and
they ventured overseas often after that. Their plethora of late-'50s and
early-'60s albums for Folkways, Choice, World Pacific, Bluesville, and
Fantasy presented the duo in acoustic folk trappings only, their
Piedmont-style musical interplay a constant (if gradually more
predictable) delight. McGhee didn't limit his talents to concert settings. He appeared on Broadway for three years in a production of playwright Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955, and later put in a stint in the Langston Hughes play Simply Heaven.
Films (Angel Heart, Buck and the Preacher) and an episode of the TV
sitcom Family Ties also benefited from his dignified presence. The
wheels finally came off the partnership of McGhee and Terry during the mid-'70s. Toward the end, they preferred not to share a stage with one another (Terry would play with another guitarist, then McGhee would do a solo), let alone communicate. One of McGhee's
final concert appearances came at the 1995 Chicago Blues Festival; his
voice was a tad less robust than usual, but no less moving, and his
rich, full-bodied acoustic guitar work cut through the cool evening air
with alacrity. His like won't pass this way again.
Source: All Music.com.
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