Brownie McGhee

BROWNIE McGHEE

Brownie McGhee, cuyo nombre de nacimiento era Walter McGhee, fue un guitarrista y cantante de blues, nacido en Knoxville, Tennessee, el 30 de noviembre de 1915, y fallecido en Oakland, California, el 16 de febrero de 1996.

McGhee, paralítico de la pierna derecha, aprendió a tocar la guitarra de su padre, quien le enseñó el típico estilo fingerpicking propio de los Apalaches. Abandonó su casa con sólo diez años y se dedicó a tocar en espectáculos de minstrel y medecine shows. Durante los años 1930, McGhee formó una banda propia, con dos guitarras, armónica y washboard. En una de sus actuaciones, Bull City Red les presentó a Blind Boy Fuller y a Sonny Terry. McGhee siempre mostró una especial admiración por Fuller, hasta el punto de que, tras la muerte de éste, realizó algunas grabaciones bajo el nombre de Blind Boy Fuller II, en un claro estilo Piedmont. 

Al fallecer Fuller en 1940, McGhee se fue a Nueva York, con Sonny Terry. A partir de este momento, las carreras musicales de Terry y McGhee están unidas, en el dúo "Sonny & Brownie", una de las formaciones más estables y exitosas de la historia del blues, realizando un gran número de grabaciones. Cuando, en los años 1960, su blues rural comenzó a perder el favor del público negro, Sonny & Brownie fueron acogidos por el público folk y por el público europeo.

A comienzos de los años 1980, Terry y McGhee se separaron, después de un período de creciente desafección. McGhee se instaló en Los Ángeles, donde siguió tocando de forma esporádica, hasta su fallecimiento.

 

Walter Brown ("Brownie") McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry.

Brownie McGhee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. As a child he had polio, which incapacitated his leg. His brother Granville "Sticks" or "Stick" McGhee was nicknamed for pushing young Brownie around in a cart. His 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. McGhee spent much of his youth immersed in music, singing with local harmony group the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet and teaching himself to play guitar. A March of Dimes-funded leg operation enabled McGhee to walk.

At age 22, Brownie McGhee became a traveling musician, working in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and befriending Blind Boy Fuller, whose guitar playing influenced him greatly. After Fuller's death in 1941, J. B. Long of Columbia Records had McGhee adopt his mentor's name, branding him "Blind Boy Fuller No. 2." By that time, McGhee was recording for Columbia's subsidiary Okeh Records in Chicago, but his real success came after he moved to New York in 1942, when he teamed up with Sonny Terry, whom he had known since 1939 when Sonny was Blind Boy Fuller's harmonica player. The pairing was an overnight success; as well as recording, they toured together until around 1980. As a duo, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee did most of their work from 1958 until 1980, spending 11 months of each year touring, and recording dozens of albums. Read More.....

Brownie McGhee Brownie's Blues