Brownie McGhee

Brownie McGhee. . Skilled and polished, Brownie McGhee's music encompassed folk, acoustic blues, rhythm and blues, and protest songs. He appeared in movies, on television and Broadway, and recorded prolifically. Although his name is usually bracketed with his longtime performing partner, Sonny Terry, McGhee had an extensive solo career. Touring indefatigably, he brought the blues to overseas and mainstream American audiences. Critic Mark Humphrey called his music a “gateway experience” to the blues., Walter Brown “Brownie” McGhee was born in Knoxville on Nov. 30, 1915, and grew up in Kingsport. He contracted polio at age 4, but surgery in Knoxville, paid for by the March of Dimes, enabled him to walk unaided. He took up the guitar in the hospital and began performing in Maryville, Knoxville, and Kingsport, occasionally for white resort audiences. By the late 1930s, McGhee had become an itinerant musician. In Burlington, North Carolina, he met the star of the Piedmont blues scene, Blind Boy Fuller, and an up-and-coming harmonica player, Sonny Terry. McGhee began recording in 1940, and after Fuller's death the following year, he was briefly dubbed “Blind Boy Fuller #2.”, In 1942, McGhee moved to New York and began working with Terry. He lived at the Almanac House alongside folk singers Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, and became involved in politics. In 1947, he co-founded Encore Records. His Encore single, “Black, Brown and White,” protested inequality. Terry and McGhee played union rallies and coffee houses, primarily for white left-wing audiences, but still played for African-American audiences., After World War II, R&B became more raucous, often featuring larger groups. McGhee, playing electric guitar, made some small-group R&B recordings, and his 1948 recording of “My Fault” was a No. 2 R&B hit. Before long, though, he accepted that his “folk blues” act with Terry , skewed primarily toward white audiences, represented a more stable career. Terry was written into the 1947 Broadway show “Finian's Rainbow,” and after the run ended, they performed together far more often than apart. They were both written into the 1955 Broadway production of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” playing its entire 18-month run., A few blues artists had toured England, including Big Bill Broonzy and Josh White, so in 1958, McGhee and Terry followed them, returning often. Back home in the States, they appeared at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival before embarking upon a state department tour of India. Their personal relationship was often rancorous, but their music was an appealing blend of opposites: Terry's roughness offset McGhee's suave vocal style and elegant, accomplished ragtime-influenced guitar playing. They made hundreds of recordings and toured 11 months of the year. In 1979, they made a memorable cameo appearance in Steve Martin's movie “The Jerk”., McGhee and Terry ceased performing together in 1982, and Terry died in 1986. McGhee continued performing; he had another movie cameo in “Angel Heart” (1987) and appeared on several television shows, including “Family Ties” and “Matlock”. He retired in the early 1990s but made one final guest appearance at the Chicago Blues Festival in June 1995., Brownie McGhee, who'd moved to Oakland, California, in 1964, died there on Feb. 16, 1996.