Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee - Working Man Blues Extended Liner Notes
SONNY TERRY AND BROWNIE McGHEE LONG NOTES
Without question the most prolific duo in the history of the blues, harpist Sonny Terry and guitarist Brownie McGhee introduced the Piedmont sound to generations of listeners. They remained together for four decades, until they could no longer bear sharing the same stages and acrimoniously went their separate ways. By then, they’d recorded so much great music together that they’d ensured eternal revered status as hallowed blues pioneers.
The mammoth discography of harpist Sonny Terry and guitarist Brownie McGhee can basically be split into two equally fertile periods. The first half covers the early postwar era, when Terry and McGhee chased R&B hits, both as a unit and separately, from their adopted New York homebase. The tough urban blues sides that they made for a vast array of labels were often recorded with small combo accompaniment in keeping with the sound of the era.
But as the ‘50s progressed, the pair shifted their artistic focus to acoustic folk-blues to counter the dropoff in commercial blues interest due to rock and roll’s inherent rise. Their core audience changed significantly too as they starred at folk festivals, in hip coffeehouses, and on television instead of the rough-and-tumble gin joints of their younger days. Their latter-day repertoire mixed familiar folk pieces that even new converts to the blues cause could easily recognize with the rowdy Piedmont blues that they’d made their early name on.
Sunset Blvd.’s expansive new two-CD collection concentrates on the latter stages of Brownie and Sonny’s long career together, after they’d made the transition to folk-blues. Eight of disc one’s first ten songs hail from Ain’t Gonna Study War, a now-rare early ‘60s album that first saw light of day on the Newark, N.J.-based Choice logo (its black-and-orange label optimistically proclaimed its output “The Sound of America”). It was produced by longtime Savoy Records A&R man Ozzie Cadena, and engineered by the esteemed Rudy Van Gelder.
For reasons now lost to time, Brownie was in the vocal spotlight throughout the set, with Sonny cast in a supporting role on harmonica but nonetheless making his whooping presence felt. As always, the two blues veterans communicated with ESP-level precision as Brownie careened through “Raise A Rukas Tonight,” “Careless Love,” “Crawdad Hole,” and “That Good Old Jelly Roll.” Big Maceo’s “Worried Life Blues,” St. Louis Jimmy’s “Going Down Slow,” Jazz Gillum’s “Key To The Highway,” and “Ma” Rainey’s timeless “C.C. Rider” also received memorable revivals. “When The Saints Go Marching In” and “Don’t Want No Cornbread” likely also hail from the Choice archives.
The first CD then jumps ahead a couple of decades to present the entirety of Conversation with the River, an album recorded August 6, 1980 by Westdeutscher Rundfunk for German consumption. By then the vibe was changing between the pair; they’d grown positively irascible towards one another, though you’d never know it from what you hear here. Aided by drummer Styve Homnick’s reflexive stick work, they tackled Elizabeth Cotten’s “Freight Train,” Big Bill Broonzy’s “I Feel So Good,” and Jim Jackson’s “Going To Kansas City” for a very appreciative crowd. McGhee offered a personalized take on Percy Mayfield’s “The River’s Invitation” as the album’s title track, while “Sweetheart” was the oldie “I’ll Always Be In Love With You.” This time Sonny got his vocal due, roaring a downbeat “I Can’t See Why My Baby Don’t Write To Me,” the rollicking “Mean Woman Blues,” and a snarling “I Got My Eyes On You.”
Our compilation’s second disc features a potent combination of two live concerts recorded a month apart that testify as to how entertaining the duo remained during their later years together. On April 20, 1974, they starred at the Cornell Folk Festival (held at Cornell University’s Barton Hall in Ithaca, New York, the three-day fest also starred John Prine, Steve Goodman, Leo Kottke, Fairport Convention, and David Bromberg); exactly one month later they performed overseas in Bremen, Germany. They stormed through “Easy Rider,” “I Was Born With The Blues” (aka “Living With The Blues”), “One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show,” and Sonny’s hurtling “Ride And Roll” and “Hootin’ Blues.” A brief reprise of Brownie’s younger brother Stick’s classic “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee” certainly hits the spot, as does their inimitable longtime anthem “Walk On.”
Sonny and Brownie had teamed up and moved to New York in 1942, but they’d distinguished themselves separately well before that. Terry, born Saunders Terrell on October 24, 1911 in Greensboro, North Carolina, learned his way around a harmonica from the age of six thanks to his father, who played reels, jigs, dance pieces, and religious themes—but no blues (the genre really hadn’t even been established yet). Sonny’s dreams of becoming a farmer were quashed by two accidents, one when he was five and the other at 18, leaving him blind.
That didn’t leave Sonny many options on surviving apart from playing his harmonica on the streets for tips. He developed a singular approach to the humble instrument, full of whoops and flutters and vocal interjections that rendered him unique (Buster Brown was one of the very few blues harpists that displayed Terry’s whooping influence). During his late teens, blues entered his repertoire. Sonny’s first break came thanks to a chance encounter with Piedmont guitarist Blind Boy Fuller; the two were busking on opposite sides of a street in Wadesboro, North Carolina, and before long they were playing together in Durham. Sonny went along with Fuller when the latter journeyed up to New York to record in 1937, playing on four of Blind Boy’s Vocalion sides, and he continued to accompany Fuller whenever he returned to the studio.
Somewhere along the line, Sonny impressed John Hammond enough to earn a featured slot on the producer’s legendary From Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall in 1938. He was back on the bill when Hammond mounted another all-star program under the same billing the next year. As Sanders Terry, the harpist cut his first solo 78 for Columbia, at the end of ‘38. He made three platters for OKeh in 1940 with washboard ace Oh Red (George Washington), this time answering to Sonny Terry. A last OKeh date in ‘41 was shelved.
Brownie traveled in the same circles before he joined forces with Sonny (they first met in April of 1939). Born Walter Brown McGhee in Knoxville, Tennessee on November 30, 1915, he too learned music from his father—Duff McGhee played reels and rags too, but on guitar in local string bands. The McGhees moved to Kingsport, Tennessee, where Brownie did most of his growing up. Polio struck him down as a lad; his younger brother Granville earned the nickname of “Stick” because he used one to push around a small cart that Brownie sat in when he went outside.
Despite his physical handicap, music was always part of Brownie’s life; he learned piano before focusing on guitar. A March of Dimes-sponsored operation on his bad leg restored his mobility in 1937, and he began rambling around the region, playing his guitar at house parties and for spare change. McGhee ended up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, teaming with harpist Jordan Webb to busk on the streets. The pair moved on to Burlington, North Carolina, where he met Oh Red (aka Bull City Red). He introduced Brownie to J.B. Long, Fuller’s manager and a talent scout for ARC Records. That led to McGhee’s first session in August of 1940.
Held in Chicago with Webb and Red in support, the session produced masters that were released on OKeh, Columbia, and Conqueror. Blind Boy died in February of 1941 and Brownie basically replaced him on Long’s talent roster; OKeh went as far as sub-billing him as Blind Boy Fuller #2 on several releases, notably “Death Of Blind Boy Fuller.” At a New York session in October of 1941, Terry backed McGhee on three songs, thus inaugurating their long musical partnership. When Sonny was invited to perform in Washington, D.C. in May of 1942, McGhee joined him (they recorded for the Library of Congress while in town).
Before the year was through, the two moved to New York and joined the burgeoning folk-blues scene centered around musicologists John and Alan Lomax. They shared impromptu hootenanny get-togethers with Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Josh White, Burl Ives, and Rev. Gary Davis, becoming known on a bustling and very urban scene that would take them a lot further than galavanting around North Carolina’s segregated tobacco country.
Whether together or separately, Sonny and Brownie recorded whenever they could. They teamed up on a December 1944 session for the fledgling Savoy label and waxed a slew of 78s for Alert in ‘46 with a small combo and Brownie doing the vocals. Sonny signed with no less than Capitol in 1947 (Stick was on guitar for his first dates, replaced by Brownie later on). That hookup was no doubt due to Sonny’s featured role in an acclaimed Broadway production of Finian’s Rainbow (he opened the show each evening with a song).
Since they were attempting to score R&B hits, most of their sides during this period were waxed with little bands backing them up. “Robbie Doby Boogie,” Brownie’s ‘48 tribute to black baseball pioneers Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby, and his “New Baseball Boogie,” both for Savoy, were thoroughly swinging affairs. He actually scored a national R&B chart entry that same year with his “My Fault.” His brother Stick matched him on the R&B hit parade in 1949 with his rollicking smash for Atlantic, “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee” (Brownie manned the other guitar).
Sonny and Brownie remained in heavy demand during the early ‘50s when it came to recording, their work appearing on Sittin’ in With, Jax, Jackson, Red Robin, and Harlem. Terry whooped up a storm on his romping 1953-55 releases on RCA Victor’s Groove subsidiary; Brownie’s mid-‘50s output on Savoy was thoroughly up-to-date, with Mickey Baker on scalding lead guitar.
But the R&B airwaves were steadily being conquered by an invasion of honking saxophones, harmonious vocal groups, and rock and roll’s pounding beat. After a couple of fine 1956-57 singles on the Old Town imprint did little business, the duo re-embraced their acoustic Piedmont roots and left the radio airplay chase to a new generation. With an occasional exception, that is: Brownie and Sonny each made sizzling 1958 singles, McGhee for Savoy and Terry for Ember, that were aimed squarely at their old audience.
Alas, it didn’t work from a commercial standpoint, but the pair’s acoustic output proved extremely popular. Moe Asch’s venerable Folkways imprint cut solo albums on Terry in 1954 and Brownie the next year as well as taping a ‘55 duo set, following those up with another couple of 1957 duet LPs. Not to be outdone, Fantasy issued a full-length album by the duo. The floodgates were wide open, more product subsequently flowing into the pipeline on Folkways and World Pacific.
When Sonny, Brownie, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Big Joe Williams all found themselves in Los Angeles in July of 1960, they went into the studio together for an impromptu summit meeting that ended up on several labels. There was a short but prolific stay at Choice Records that spawned three albums, and Prestige’s Bluesville subsidiary unleashed a torrent of their LPs as the decade turned.
Along with all the fresh records, Sonny and Brownie developed into a household name among college-educated folkies. The duo starred at top venues that included Chicago’s Gate of Horn, the Ash Grove in L.A., Gerde’s Folk City and the Village Gate in New York, and Philadelphia’s Second Fret, and they dazzled the 1959 and 1963 editions of the Newport Folk Festival. Europe was a frequent touring destination as well. The duo even toured India in 1959-60 under the auspices of the U.S. State Department.
Even when their recording activities slowed down some during the second half of the ‘60s, their touring itinerary never let up. Eventually all that forced togetherness bred considerable discontent between the two blues veterans; they needed one another, but that didn’t mean they wanted to interact any more than was absolutely necessary. Things got so frosty towards the end of their partnership in the early ‘80s that Sonny and Brownie would no longer share a stage. Terry would perform with another guitarist, and then McGhee would come out after they were done and do a solo set.
Terry made a solid solo album, Whoopin’, for producer/guitarist Johnny Winter that came out on Alligator in 1984 (upright bassist Willie Dixon and Homnick were also involved). He died March 11, 1986 in Mineola, New York at age 74. McGhee lasted for another decade, appearing in the 1987 film Angel Heart and on the popular TV series Family Ties and Matlock before dying at age 80 on February 16, 1996 in Oakland, California.
The tense last days of Sonny and Brownie’s longstanding partnership were still mercifully in the future when they made the infectious music constituting this collection. Let the greatest duo in blues history work their double-barreled magic on you.
--Bill Dahl
SOURCES
Blues & Gospel Records 1902-1943, by Robert M.W. Dixon and John Godrich (Essex, Great Britain: Storyville Pubs., 1982)
Blues Who’s Who, by Sheldon Harris (New York: Da Capo Press, 1991)
Blues Records 1943-1970: Volume Two, L-Z, by Mike Leadbitter, Leslie Fancourt and Paul Pelletier (London: Record Information Services, 1994)
Discogs website: www.discogs.com
Joel Whitburn’s Top R&B Singles 1942-1988, by Joel Whitburn (Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research, Inc., 1989)
Living Blues No. 13, Summer 1973: “Living Blues Interview: Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee,” by Barry Elmes
Setlist.fm website: https://www.setlist.fm/festival/1974/cornell-folk-festival-1974-6bd6c2a2.html
Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/