Walter Brown McGhee, b. November 30, 1915 in Knoxville, TN, d. February 16, 1996 in Oakland, CA. McGhee learned guitar from his father, and started a musical career early on, playing in church before he was 10 years old, and on the road with medicine shows, carnivals and minstrel troupes in his early teens. His travels took him into the Carolinas, and his time there proved very influential in moulding his musical style. His younger brother was Granville 'Sticks' McGhee, also a singer and blues guitarist. He met Sonny Terry in 1939, and their partnership was to become one of the most enduring in blues. The following year, he made his first records, reminiscent of those of Blind Boy Fuller; indeed some of them bore the credit 'Blind Boy Fuller No.2'. Also around this time, he settled in New York, where his career took a rather different turn, as he took up with a group of black musicians - including Terry, Lead Belly and Josh White - favoured by the then small white audience for the blues. They also became part of the Folkways Records cognoscenti with Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. For a number of years, he catered very successfully both for this audience, playing acoustic blues in an older style, and for an entirely separate one.
Throughout the late 40s and early 50s, he recorded electric blues and R&B aimed at black record buyers. In retrospect, it is this second type that stands up best, and indeed, some of his records from this period rank among the finest blues to come out of New York in the post-war years. He was also very prolific as an accompanist, playing superb lead guitar on records by other artists such as Champion Jack Dupree, Big Chief Ellis and Alonzo Scales, as well as his brother 'Sticks'. His partnership with Terry became more firmly established during this period, and, as the original market for blues and R&B faded, they carved a very strong niche for themselves, playing concerts, festivals and clubs, and making albums aimed at the growing audience for folk music. For many years, they travelled the world and made record after record, establishing their names among the best-known of all blues artists. However, critical opinion seems agreed that their music suffered to a large degree during this period, as it was diluted for such a wide international audience and successive recordings trod similar ground.
After making many of their successful recordings for Vanguard Records, the duo then appeared widely in musical theatre productions, including Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Finian's Rainbow and Simply Heaven. They also contributed to the soundtracks of films including Book Of Numbers, Lead Belly, Buck And The Preacher and A Face In The Crowd. McGhee's partnership with Terry eventually ended in the mid-70s after a build-up of internal tensions. While Terry continued to work until his death in 1986 McGhee retired to Oakland, California. One of his last projects was as an actor in the movie Angel Heart. He played the part of musician Toots Sweet. He was in the process of making a live comeback when he was struck by cancer which resulted in his death early in 1996. Of all the great bluesmen McGhee's voice had an incredibly warm tone, if he had chosen to be pop crooner or a ballad singer he would most certainly have succeeded. His albums with Terry are the very pinnacle of folk blues.
By Bill Dahl
Throughout the late 40s and early 50s, he recorded electric blues and R&B aimed at black record buyers. In retrospect, it is this second type that stands up best, and indeed, some of his records from this period rank among the finest blues to come out of New York in the post-war years. He was also very prolific as an accompanist, playing superb lead guitar on records by other artists such as Champion Jack Dupree, Big Chief Ellis and Alonzo Scales, as well as his brother 'Sticks'. His partnership with Terry became more firmly established during this period, and, as the original market for blues and R&B faded, they carved a very strong niche for themselves, playing concerts, festivals and clubs, and making albums aimed at the growing audience for folk music. For many years, they travelled the world and made record after record, establishing their names among the best-known of all blues artists. However, critical opinion seems agreed that their music suffered to a large degree during this period, as it was diluted for such a wide international audience and successive recordings trod similar ground.
After making many of their successful recordings for Vanguard Records, the duo then appeared widely in musical theatre productions, including Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Finian's Rainbow and Simply Heaven. They also contributed to the soundtracks of films including Book Of Numbers, Lead Belly, Buck And The Preacher and A Face In The Crowd. McGhee's partnership with Terry eventually ended in the mid-70s after a build-up of internal tensions. While Terry continued to work until his death in 1986 McGhee retired to Oakland, California. One of his last projects was as an actor in the movie Angel Heart. He played the part of musician Toots Sweet. He was in the process of making a live comeback when he was struck by cancer which resulted in his death early in 1996. Of all the great bluesmen McGhee's voice had an incredibly warm tone, if he had chosen to be pop crooner or a ballad singer he would most certainly have succeeded. His albums with Terry are the very pinnacle of folk blues.
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By Bill Dahl
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.