Sonny Terry | |
|---|---|
 Terry performing atNambassa in 1981 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Saunders Terrell (1911-10-24)October 24, 1911 Greensboro, Georgia, U.S. |
| Origin | Shelby, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Died | March 11, 1986(1986-03-11) (aged 74) Mineola, New York, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Occupation | Musician |
| Instruments |
|
| Years active | 1930s–1980s |
| Labels | |
Saunders Terrell (October 24, 1911 – March 11, 1986),[1] known asSonny Terry, was an AmericanPiedmont blues andfolk musician,[2] who was known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers and occasionally imitations of trains and fox hunts.
Terry was born inGreensboro, Georgia.[3] His father, a farmer, taught him to play basicblues harp as a youth. He sustained injuries to his eyes and went blind by the time he was 16, which prevented him from doing farm work,[1] and was forced to play music in order to earn a living.[4] Terry played "Camptown Races" to the plow horses which improved the efficiency of farming in the area. He began playing blues inShelby, North Carolina. After his father died, he began playing withPiedmont blues–style guitaristBlind Boy Fuller.[4] When Fuller died in 1941, Terry established a long-standing musical relationship withBrownie McGhee, and they recorded numerous songs together. The duo became well known among white audiences during the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s,[4] including for collaborations with Styve Homnick,Woody Guthrie andMoses Asch, producing classic recordings forFolkways Records (now Smithsonian/Folkways).[4]
In 1938, Terry was invited to play atCarnegie Hall for the firstFrom Spirituals to Swingconcert,[1] and later that year he recorded for theLibrary of Congress. He recorded his first commercial sides in 1940. Among his most famous works are "Old Jabo", a song about a man bitten by a snake, and "Lost John", which demonstrates Terry's precisely honed breath control.
Despite their fame as "pure" folk artists, in the 1940s Terry and McGhee fronted ajump blues combo with honking saxophone and rolling piano, which was variously billed as "Brownie McGhee and his Jook House Rockers" or "Sonny Terry and his Buckshot Five".
Terry was in the 1947 original cast of theBroadway musical comedyFinian's Rainbow.[5] With McGhee, he appeared in the 1979Steve Martin comedyThe Jerk. Terry also appeared in the 1985 filmThe Color Purple, directed bySteven Spielberg. Terry collaborated withRy Cooder on "Walkin' Away Blues", and also performed a cover ofRobert Johnson's "Crossroad Blues" for the 1986 filmCrossroads.
Terry and McGhee 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.[6] That year's fellowships were the first bestowed by the NEA.
Terry died ofnatural causes inMineola, New York, in March 1986, three days beforeCrossroads was released in theaters.[7] He was inducted into theBlues Hall of Fame in the same year.[1]
