Brownie McGhee
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Walter "Brownie" McGhee (November 30, 1915 - February 16, 1996) was a folk-blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.
He was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and suffered from polio as a child, which incapacitated his leg. McGhee spent much of his youth immersed in music, singing with local harmony group (the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet) and teaching himself the guitar. At the age of 22 he became a travelling musician, meeting and befriending Blind Boy Fuller, whose guitar playing influenced him greatly. After Fuller's death in 1941, J.B. Long of Columbia Records had him adopt his mentor's name, branding him Blind Boy Fuller II. By that time, McGhee was recording for Columbia's subsidiary Okeh Records in Chicago, Illinois, but his real success did not come until his 1942 relocation to New York City, where he was teamed up with Sonny Terry. The pairing was an overnight success, recording and touring extensively until the early 1970s.
Despite their fame as "pure" folk artists, in the 1940s, Sonny and Brownie fronted a jump band combo with honking saxophone that was variously called Brownie McGhee and his Jook House Rockers or Sonny Terry and his Buckshot Five.
During the "folk revival" of the 1960s Terry and McGhee were highly popular on the concert and festival circuits, occasionally adding new material but usually remaining faithful to their roots.
In 1987, McGhee gave a small but memorable performance as ill-fated blues singer, Toots Sweet, in the supernatural thriller movie, Angel Heart.
Happy Traum, a former guitar lesson student of Brownie's, edited a blues guitar instruction guide and songbook for him. Using a tape recorder, Happy just let Brownie instruct and, in between, talk about his life and the blues. It's entitled "Guitar Styles of Brownie McGhee", was edited by Happy Traum and published in New City in 1971 by Oak Publications, (a division of Embassy Music Corporation), and in the UK by Music Sales Limited, London. The autobiography section has Brownie talking about growing up, his musical beginnings, and a history of the early blues period (1930's onward). Lots of great photos as well as chord charts and song lyrics are sprinkled throughout.
McGhee died from stomach cancer in February 1996, at the age of 80.[1]
