MCGHEE

Walter Brown “Brownie” McGhee , Piedmont blues singer and guitarist best known for his collaborations with the harmonica player Sonny Terry, was born in Tennessee and spent much of his youth singing with a local harmony group and teaching himself to play guitar. At age 22 he became a traveling musician, befriended Blind Boy Fuller and through him met blues harmonica player Sonny Terry. He teamed up with Terry when he moved to New York in 1942 where they quickly became a part of the city’s folk music scene, working with Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Lead Belly. After the end of World War II, McGhee began to record prolifically with and without Terry for a myriad of R & B labels. McGhee and Terry were among the first blues artists to tour Europe and toured and recorded together until around 1980. They also appeared in the original Broadway productions of Finian’s Rainbow and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Brownie’s songs include “Born with the Blues”, “Southern Train”, “That’s How I Feel”, and written with his wife Ruth, “Gone But Not Forgotten” and “Walk On”. He and Sonny Terry also wrote songs such as “Hound Dog Holler” together. In later life Brownie McGhee began appearing in small film or TV roles.