Brownie McGhee

Walter Brown Brownie McGhee (November 30,

1915 February 16, 1996)[1] was a Piedmont blues singer
and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the
harmonica player Sonny Terry.[2]

were very popular on the concert and music festival circuits, occasionally adding new material but usually remaining faithful to their roots and their audience.
Late in his life, McGhee began appearing in small lm
or TV roles. With Sonny Terry, he appeared in the 1979
Steve Martin comedy The Jerk. In 1987, McGhee gave
a small but memorable performance as ill-fated blues
singer Toots Sweet in the supernatural thriller movie,
Angel Heart. In his review of Angel Heart, critic Roger
Ebert singled out McGhee for praise, declaring that
he delivered a performance that proves [saxophonist]
Dexter Gordon isn't the only old musician who can act.[5]
McGhee appeared in a 1988 episode of Family Ties
titled The Blues, Brother in which he played ctional
blues musician Eddie Dupre, as well as a 1989 episode of
Matlock entitled The Blues Singer.

Life and career

Brownie McGhee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and

grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee.[3] As a child of about
four he contracted polio, which incapacitated his leg. His
brother Granville Sticks or Stick McGhee was nicknamed for pushing young Brownie around in a cart. His
father, George McGhee, was a factory worker known
around University Avenue for playing guitar and singing.
Brownies uncle made him a guitar from a tin marshmallow box and a piece of board.[4] McGhee spent much of
his youth immersed in music, singing with local harmony
group the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet and teaching
himself to play guitar. A March of Dimes-funded leg
operation enabled McGhee to walk.

Happy Traum, a former guitar student of Brownies,

edited a blues guitar instruction guide and songbook for
him. Using a tape recorder, Traum had McGhee instruct and, between lessons, talk about his life and the
blues. Guitar Styles of Brownie McGhee was published
in New York in 1971. The autobiographical section feaAt age 22, Brownie McGhee became a traveling musi- tures Brownie talking about growing up, his musical becian, working in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and befriend- ginnings, and a history of the early blues period (1930s
ing Blind Boy Fuller, whose guitar playing inuenced onward).
him greatly. After Fullers death in 1941, J. B. Long
One of McGhees nal concert appearances was at the
of Columbia Records had McGhee adopt his mentors
1995 Chicago Blues Festival.[3]
name, branding him Blind Boy Fuller No. 2. By that
time, McGhee was recording for Columbias subsidiary McGhee died from stomach cancer in February 1996 in
Okeh Records in Chicago, but his real success came af- Oakland, California, at age 80.
ter he moved to New York in 1942, when he teamed up
with Sonny Terry, whom he had known since 1939 when
Sonny was Blind Boy Fullers harmonica player. The
2 Discography
pairing was an overnight success; as well as recording,
they toured together until around 1980. As a duo, Sonny
Terry and Brownie McGhee did most of their work from 2.1 Solo albums
1958 until 1980, spending 11 months of each year touring, and recording dozens of albums.
Traditional Blues - Vol. 1 (Folkways Records, 1951)
Despite their later fame as pure folk artists playing for
white audiences, in the 1940s Terry and McGhee also
attempted to be successful black recording performers,
fronting a jump blues combo with honking saxophone
and rolling piano, variously calling themselves Brownie
McGhee and his Jook House Rockers or Sonny Terry
and his Buckshot Five, often with Champion Jack
Dupree and Big Chief Ellis. They also appeared in the
original Broadway productions of Finians Rainbow and
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Brownie McGhee Blues (Folkways, 1955)

Brownie McGhee Sings the Blues (Folkways, 1959)
Traditional Blues - Vol. 2 (Folkways, 1960)
Brownies Blues (Original Blues Classics, 1962)
Blues Is Truth (Blues Alliance, 1976)
Facts Of Life (Blues Rock'It, 1985)

During the blues revival of the 1960s, Terry and McGhee

1

2.2

Compilation

The Folkways Years, 1945-1959 (Smithsonian Folkways, 1991)

2.3

With Sonny Terry

Brownie McGhee Blues (Folkways, 1955)

Washboard Band - Country Dance Music (Folkways,
1956)
Folk Songs of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
(Roulette, 1958)
Blues with Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and
Brownie McGhee (Folkways, 1959)
Sonny & Brownie (A&M Records, 1973)
Brownie McGhee and Sonny
(Smithsonian Folkways, 1990)

Terry

Sing

See also
American folk music
Woody Guthrie
American Blues
List of blues musicians
List of people from Tennessee
List of folk musicians

References

[1] Doc Rock. The Dead Rock Stars Club 1996 - 1997.
Thedeadrockstarsclub.com. Retrieved 2011-11-08.
[2] Du Noyer, Paul (2003). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of
Music (1st ed.). Fulham, London: Flame Tree Publishing.
p. 181. ISBN 1-904041-96-5.
[3] AllMusic biography
[4] Neely, Jack. Knoxvilles Secret History. Scruy City
Publishing, 1995.
[5] Roger Ebert (March 6, 1987). Angel Heart. Chicago
Sun-Times. Retrieved 2010-07-29.

External links
Center for Southern African American Music Brownie McGhee McGhee bio and audio samples
Brownie McGhee at the Internet Movie Database

EXTERNAL LINKS

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

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