Blind Willie McTell
McTell recording forJohn Lomax in anAtlanta hotel room, November 1940
Background information
Birth name	William Samuel McTier
Also known as	Blind Sammie Georgia Bill Hot Shot Willie Blind Willie Barrelhouse Sammy Pig & Whistle Red Blind Doogie Red Hot Willie Glaze Eddie McTier
Born	(1898-05-05)May 5, 1898 Thomson, Georgia, U.S.
Died	August 19, 1959(1959-08-19) (aged 61) Milledgeville, Georgia, U.S.
Genres	Country blues Piedmont blues ragtime Delta blues gospel
Occupations	Musician songwriter songster preacher
Instruments	Guitar vocals
Years active	1910s–1956
Labels	Victor Columbia Okeh Vocalion Decca Atlantic Regal Prestige Transatlantic

Blind Willie McTell (bornWilliam Samuel McTier; May 5, 1898 – August 19, 1959) was an AmericanPiedmont blues andragtime singer, songwriter and guitarist. He played in a fluid, syncopatedfinger picking guitar style common among many East Coast, Piedmont blues players. Like his Atlanta contemporaries, he came to usetwelve-string guitars exclusively. McTell was also adept atslide guitar, unusual among ragtime bluesmen. He sang in a smooth and often laid-backtenor which differed greatly from the harsher voices of manyDelta bluesmen such asCharley Patton. He performed in various musical styles including blues, ragtime,religious music, andhokum and recorded more than 120 titles during fourteen recording sessions.

He was born William Samuel McTier^[1] in the Happy Valley community outsideThomson, Georgia. In his recordings of "Lay Some Flowers on My Grave", "Lord, Send Me an Angel" and "Statesboro Blues", he pronounces his surnameMacTell with the stress on the first syllable. He learned to play the guitar in his early teens from his mother and from relatives and neighbors in Statesboro where his family had moved. He was a popular performer on the streets of several Georgia cities, includingAugusta andAtlanta where he made his first recordings, eight songs, forVictor Records in 1927 including "Statesboro Blues." .^[2] He never had a majorhit record but he had a prolific recording career with different labels and under different names in the 1920s and '30s. McTell was active in the 1940s and '50s playing at house rent parties, on street corners, at fish fries, on the medicine and tent show circuit, playing on the streets of Atlanta, often with his longtime friend,Curley Weaver as well as hoboing through the South and East. He made his last recordings in 1956 at an impromptu session recorded by an Atlanta record store owner. He died three years later, having lived for years with diabetes and alcoholism. Despite his lack of commercial success, he was one of the few blues musicians of his generation who continued to actively play and record during the 1940s and '50s. He did not live to see theAmerican folk music revival when many other bluesmen were rediscovered.^[3]

Most sources give the date of his birth as 1898 but researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc suggest 1903 on the basis of his entry in the1910 census.^[4] McTell was bornblind in one eye and lost his remaining vision by late childhood. He attended schools for the blind in Georgia, New York and Michigan and showed proficiency in music from an early age, learning to read and write music inbraille,^[3] first playing the harmonica and accordion and turning to the six-string guitar in his early teens.^[3][1] His family was rich in music; both of his parents and an uncle played the guitar and he and bluesman and gospel pioneerThomas A. Dorsey were cousins.^[1]

McTell's father left the family when Willie was young. After his mother died, in the 1920s, he left his hometown and became an itinerantsongster. LikeLead Belly, another songster who began his career on the streets, McTell favored thetwelve-string guitar whose greater volume made it suitable for outdoor playing. In the years beforeWorld War II, McTell traveled and performed widely, recording for several labels under different names: Blind Willie McTell forVictor andDecca, Blind Sammie forColumbia, Georgia Bill forOkeh, Hot Shot Willie for Victor, Blind Willie forVocalion andBluebird, Barrelhouse Sammie forAtlantic, and Pig & Whistle Red forRegal Records.^[5] The name "Pig & Whistle" was a reference to a chain of barbecue restaurants in Atlanta;^[6] McTell often played for tips in the parking lot of a Pig 'n Whistle restaurant. He also played behind a nearby building that later became Ray Lee's Blue Lantern Lounge.

McTell married Ruth Kate Williams,^[3] now better known asKate McTell, in 1934. She accompanied him on stage and on several recordings before becoming a nurse in 1939. For most of their marriage, from 1942 until his death, they lived apart, she inFort Gordon, near Augusta, and he working around Atlanta.

In 1940, John Lomax, aClassics professor at theUniversity of Texas at Austin and his wife,Ruby Terrill Lomax, interviewed and recorded McTell for theArchive of American Folk Song of theLibrary of Congress in a two-hour session held in their hotel room in Atlanta.^[7] These recordings captured McTell's distinctive musical style which bridges the gap between the country blues of the early part of the 20th century and the more conventionally melodious,ragtime-influenced East Coast, Piedmont blues sound. The Lomaxes also elicited from him traditional songs (such as"The Boll Weevil" and"John Henry") and spirituals (such as "Amazing Grace"),^[8] which were not part of his usual repertoire. In the interview, John Lomax is heard asking if McTell knows any "complaining" songs (an earlier term forprotest songs), to which he replies somewhat uncomfortably and evasively that he does not. The Library of Congress paid McTell $10, the equivalent of $154.56 in 2011, for this two-hour session.^[2] The material from this 1940 session was issued in 1960 as an LP and later as a CD under the somewhat misleading titleThe Complete Library of Congress Recordings notwithstanding the fact that it omitted some of Lomax's interactions showing kindness to him and entirely omitting the contributions of Ruby Terrill Lomax.^{[note 1]}

Ahmet Ertegun visited Atlanta in 1949 in search of blues artists for this newAtlantic Records label and after finding McTell playing on the street, arranged a recording session. Some of the songs were released on 78 rpm discs but sold poorly. The complete session was released in 1972 asAtlanta Twelve-String. McTell recorded forRegal Records in 1949 but these recordings also met with less commercial success than his previous works. He continued to perform around Atlanta but his career was cut short by ill health, mostly due todiabetes andalcoholism. In 1956, an Atlanta record store owner, Edward Rhodes, discovered McTell playing in the street for quarters and enticed him into his store with a bottle of bourbon where he captured 13 songs on a tape recorder whichPrestige Records/Bluesville Records posthumously released as hisLast Session.^[10] From 1957 to 1959, McTell was a preacher at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Atlanta.^[3]

Blind Willie McTell died of a stroke inMilledgeville, Georgia, in 1959, at the age of 61. He was buried at Jones Grove Church, near Thomson, Georgia, his birthplace. AuthorDavid Fulmer, who in 1992 was working onBlind Willie's Blues, a documentary about McTell, arranged to have a blue marble gravestone erected on his resting place.^[11] McTell was inducted into theBlues Foundation'sBlues Hall of Fame in 1981^[12] and theGeorgia Music Hall of Fame in 1990.^[3]

McTell's influence extended over a wide variety of artists. His most famous song, "Statesboro Blues" was adapted byTaj Mahal withJesse Ed Davis on slide guitar, then covered and frequently performed by theAllman Brothers Band.^[13] It also shows up on Canned Heat's "Goin' Up the Country" album. A short list of some of the artists who have performed the song includesDavid Bromberg,Dave Van Ronk,The Devil Makes Three,Chris Smither andRalph McTell, who changed his name because he liked the song.^[14]Ry Cooder covered McTell's "Married Man's a Fool" on his 1973 album,Paradise and Lunch.Jack White, of theWhite Stripes, considers McTell an influence; the White Stripes albumDe Stijl (2000) is dedicated to him and features a cover of his song "Southern Can Is Mine". The White Stripes also covered McTell's "Lord, Send Me an Angel", releasing it as a single in 2000. In 2013, Jack White's Third Man Records teamed up with Document Records to issueThe Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order of Charley Patton, Blind Willie McTell and the Mississippi Sheiks.

Bob Dylan paid tribute to McTell on at least four occasions. In his 1965 song "Highway 61 Revisited", the second verse begins, "Georgia Sam, he had a bloody nose", an allusion to one of McTell's many recording names (Note: there is no evidence that he used this name on any recordings). Dylan's song "Blind Willie McTell" was recorded in 1983 and released in 1991 onThe Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3. Dylan also recorded covers of McTell's "Broke Down Engine" and "Delia" on his 1993 album,World Gone Wrong;^{[note 2]} Dylan's song "Po' Boy", on the albumLove and Theft (2001), contains the lyric "had to go to Florida dodging them Georgia laws", which comes from McTell's "Kill It Kid".^[16]

The Bath-based bandKill It Kid is named after the song of the same title.^[17]

A billiards bar and concert venue in Statesboro, Georgia, was named Blind Willie's in the 1990s. The venue is now closed but remains a fond memory for Georgia Southern University students at the time.^[18]

Another Blind Willie's bar in the Virginia-Highlands neighborhood of Atlanta named after McTell that features blues musicians and bands.^[19] The Blind Willie McTell Blues Festival is held annually in Thomson, Georgia.^[19]

• An in depth, illustrated discography -https://www.wirz.de/music/mctell.htm

As an accompanist

• Blind Willie McTell 1927–1933: The Early Years,Yazoo L-1005 (1968)
• Blind Willie McTell 1949: Trying to Get Home,Biograph BLP-12008 (1969)
• King of the Georgia Blues Singers (1929–1935), Roots RL-324 (1969)
• Atlanta Twelve String,Atlantic SD-7224 (1972)
• Death Cell Blues, Biograph BLP-C-14 (1973)
• Blind Willie McTell: 1927–1935,Yazoo L-1037 (1974)
• Blind Willie McTell: 1927–1949, The Remaining Titles,Wolf WSE 102 (1982)
• Blues in the Dark,MCA 1368 (1983)
• Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vol. 1,Document DOCD-5006 (1990)
• Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vol. 2, Document DOCD-5007 (1990)
• Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vol. 3, Document DOCD-5008 (1990)
  • These three albums were issued together as the box setStatesboro Blues, Document DOCD-5677 (1990)
• Complete Library of Congress Recordings in Chronological Order, RST Blues Documents BDCD-6001 (1990)
• Pig 'n Whistle Red, Biograph BCD 126 (1993)
• The Definitive Blind Willie McTell,Legacy C2K-53234 (1994)
• The Classic Years 1927–1940,JSP JSP7711 (2003)
• King of the Georgia Blues,Snapper SBLUECD504X (2007)
• Last Sessions, Prestige Bluesville lp 1040, (1961), Original Blues Classics OBC CD-517-2, (1992)

• Blind Willie McTell/Memphis Minnie: Love Changin' Blues, Biograph BLP-12035 (1971)
• Atlanta Blues 1933, JEMF 106 (1979)
• Blind Willie McTell and Curley Weaver: The Post-War Years, RST Blues Documents BDCD 6014 (1990)
• Classic Blues Artwork from the 1920s, vol. 5, Blues Images – BIM-105 (2007)

  3. In 1996,  novelist and former music journalist David Fulmer releasedBlind Willie's Blues, a 53-minute documentary about McTell’s life, times, and music, with interviews with African-American history professor Daphne Duval Harrison, blues legend Taj Mahal, guitar master Stefan Grossman, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, McTell's former brother-in-law Rev. A.J. Williams, and Edward Rhodes, who produced McTell's "Last Session" recording. In late 2023, the film was remastered by the Southeastern Folklife Collection at Valdosta State University and is currently streaming on YouTube.[20]

• Gray, Michael (2009).Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes. Chicago Review Press.ISBN 978-1-56976-337-7. RetrievedApril 13, 2020.

• Bastin, Bruce.Red River Blues: The Blues Tradition in the Southeast. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986, 1995.ISBN 0-252-06521-2,ISBN 978-0-252-06521-7.
• Charters, Samuel, ed.Sweet as the Showers of Rain. Oak Publications, 1977, pp, 120–131.

• New Georgia Encyclopedia – Blind Willie McTell article
• Illustrated Blind Willie McTell discography
• Blind Willie McTell atFind a Grave
• "Statesboro Blues" MP3 file on the Internet Archive
• David Fulmer, producer "Blind Willie's Blues" Documentary film, 1996
• "The Dying Crapshooter's Blues" Novel by David Fulmer featuring McTell as a characterArchived January 21, 2013, atarchive.today
• John May interviews biographerArchived October 5, 2011, at theWayback MachineMichael Gray
• Review of Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell by Michael Gray

• 1898 births
• 1959 deaths
• African-American male singer-songwriters
• American male singer-songwriters
• American acoustic guitarists
• American blues guitarists
• American blues harmonica players
• American blues singer-songwriters
• American male guitarists
• American street performers
• Blind musicians
• Blind singers
• Bluebird Records artists
• Columbia Records artists
• Country blues musicians
• East Coast blues musicians
• People from Thomson, Georgia
• Piedmont blues musicians
• Ragtime composers
• Songster musicians
• 20th-century American guitarists
• Guitarists from Georgia (U.S. state)
• Prestige Records artists
• Transatlantic Records artists
• Third Man Records artists
• African-American guitarists
• 20th-century African-American male singers
• 20th-century American male singers
• 20th-century American singers
• Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)
• American blind people
• American musicians with disabilities

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