Brownie McGhee | |
|---|---|
 McGhee in 1982 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Walter Brown McGhee |
| Born | (1915-11-30)November 30, 1915 Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | February 16, 1996(1996-02-16) (aged 80) Oakland, California, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupation | Musician |
| Instruments |
|
| Years active | 1930s–1995 |
Walter Brown "Brownie"McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996)[1] was an Americanfolk andPiedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica playerSonny Terry.[2]
McGhee was born inKnoxville, Tennessee, and grew up inKingsport, Tennessee.[3] At about the age of four he contracted polio, which incapacitated his right leg. His brotherGranville "Stick" McGhee, who also later became a musician and composed the song "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee",[4] was nicknamed for pushing young Brownie around in a cart. Their father, George McGhee, was a factory worker, known around University Avenue for playing guitar and singing. Brownie's uncle made him a guitar from a tin marshmallow box and a piece of board.[5]
McGhee spent much of his youth immersed in music, singing with a local harmony group, the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet, and teaching himself to play guitar. He also played the five-string banjo and ukulele and studied piano.[4] Surgery funded by theMarch of Dimes enabled McGhee to walk.[6]
At the age of 22, McGhee became a traveling musician, working in theRabbit Foot Minstrels and befriendingBlind Boy Fuller, whose guitar playing influenced him greatly. After Fuller's death in 1941,J. B. Long ofColumbia Records promoted McGhee as "Blind Boy Fuller No. 2".[7] By that time, McGhee was recording for Columbia's subsidiaryOkeh Records in Chicago, but his real success came after he moved to New York in 1942, when he teamed up withSonny Terry, whom he had known since 1939, when Terry was Fuller's harmonica player.[7] The pairing was an overnight success. They recorded and toured together until around 1980.[7] As a duo, Terry and McGhee did most of their work from 1958 until 1980, spending 11 months of each year touring and recording dozens of albums.[8]
Despite their later fame as "pure" folk artists playing for white audiences, in the 1940s Terry and McGhee had attempted to be successful recording artists, fronting ajump 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 withChampion Jack Dupree andBig Chief Ellis. They also appeared in the originalBroadway productions ofFinian's Rainbow andCat on a Hot Tin Roof.
During theblues revival of the 1960s, Terry and McGhee were popular on the concert and music festival circuits, occasionally adding new material but usually remaining faithful to their roots and playing to the tastes of their audiences.[8]
Late in his life, McGhee appeared in small roles in films and on television. He and Terry appeared in the 1979Steve Martin comedyThe Jerk. In 1987, McGhee gave a small but memorable performance as the ill-fated blues singer Toots Sweet in the supernatural thriller movieAngel Heart. In his review ofAngel Heart, the criticRoger Ebert singled out McGhee for praise, declaring that he delivered a "performance that proves [saxophonist]Dexter Gordon isn't the only old musicianwho can act."[9] McGhee appeared in the television seriesFamily Ties, in a 1988 episode entitled "The Blues, Brother", in which he played the fictional blues musician Eddie Dupre. He also appeared in the television seriesMatlock, in a 1989 episode entitled "The Blues Singer", playing a friend of an old blues musician (Joe Seneca) who is accused of murder. In the episode, McGhee, Seneca and starAndy Griffith perform a duet of "The Midnight Special".
Happy Traum, a former guitar student of McGhee's, edited a blues guitar instruction guide and songbook,Guitar Styles of Brownie McGhee, published in 1971, in which McGhee, between lessons, talked about his life and the blues. The autobiographical section features McGhee talking about growing up, his musical beginnings, and a history of the blues from the 1930s onward.
McGhee and Terry were both recipients of a 1982National Heritage Fellowship awarded by theNational Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.[10] That year's fellowships were the first bestowed by the NEA.
One of McGhee's last concert appearances was at the 1995Chicago Blues Festival.[3]
He died ofstomach cancer on February 16, 1996, inOakland, California, at the age of 80.[11]
McGhee was portrayed byJoshua Henry in the 2024 filmA Complete Unknown.[12]
