Acoustic Guitar Lessons - The Life And Times Of Blues Man Brownie McGhee

Reblogged from bestacousticguitarlessons

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Brownie McGhee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and was brought up in Kingsport, also in that State. When a child he developed polio, which affected his leg. His brother Granville “Sticks” or “Stick” McGhee was nicknamed for pushing young Brownie around in a cart. His father, George McGhee, worked in a factory and was known in the region around University Avenue for playing guitar and singing. No doubt McGhee got his first acoustic guitar lessons from his father. Brownie’s uncle made him a guitar from an old tin box and a piece of old wood. McGhee spent a lot of of his younger years immersed in music, singing with local ensemble called the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet and he taught himself to play guitar.

When he was 22, Brownie McGhee decided to become a wandering performer, as a member of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and becoming friendly with Blind Boy Fuller, whose guitar playing influenced the younger man. It appears that Fuller also gave Brownie guitar lessons at about that time. When Fuller died in 1941, J. B. Long of Columbia Records had McGhee adopt his mentor’s name, calling him “Blind Boy Fuller No. 2.” At this time, McGhee was making records for Okeh Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records based in Illinois, but his reall success arrived when he moved to NY City in 1942, when he joined the legendary Sonny Terry, whom he had known since 1939 as Terry was Blind Boy Fuller’s harmonica player. The pairing was an overnight success. In addition to recording, they toured together until around 1980. As a couple, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee did most of their work from 1958 to 1980, dedicating 11 months of each year touring, and recording dozens of albums.

In spite their later fame as “pure” folk performers playing for white audiences, during the 1940s they also tried to become successful black artists, creating a traditional blues group with blaring saxophone and boogie piano, variously naming themselves “Brownie McGhee and his Jook House Rockers” or “Sonny Terry and his Buckshot Five,” frequently with Champion Jack Dupree and Big Chief Ellis.

During the blues-folk revival of the 1960s, Brownie and Sonny were extremely popular on the concert and music fair circuits, now and again adding new songs but usually staying faithful to the blues roots and their audience.

Happy Traum, a celebrated pupil of Brownie’s, edited a blues guitar tuition guide and songbook applying his techniques. Using a tape recorder, Traum had McGhee give instruction and, between lessons, talk about his life and blues music. Guitar Styles of Brownie McGhee was made public in New York in 1971. The autobiographical section features McGhee talking about growing up, his musical beginnings, and a short history of the early blues period.

McGhee’s final public appearance was at the 1995 Chicago Blues Festival. McGhee passed away from stomach cancer in 1996 in Oakland, California at the age of 80.