Brownie McGhee first saw the light of day in Knoxville, Tennessee and grew up in Kingsport, also in that State. When a child he had polio, which incapacitated his leg. His brother Granville "Sticks" or "Stick" McGhee was so called because he would push young Brownie everywhere in a cart. His Dad, George McGhee, worked in a factory and was known in the region around University Avenue for entertaining with his guitar. No doubt McGhee got his first acoustic guitar lessons from his father. An uncle of Brownie's made him his first guitar from an old tin box and a section of old wood. Brownie spent a lot of of his younger years immersed in music, singing with local ensemble called the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet and teaching himself to pick guitar. At age 22, McGhee decided to become a wandering musician, as a member of the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and befriending Blind Boy Fuller, whose guitar playing influenced the younger man. It seems that Fuller additionally gave Brownie guitar lessons during their relationship. When Fuller died in 1941, J. B. Long of Columbia Records had McGhee borrowed 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 the mostl success came after he relocated to New York in 1942, when he joined the legendary Sonny Terry, whom he had known since 1939 as Sonny was played harmonica for BB Fuller. The relationship was an overnight success. As well as recording, they toured together until about 1980. As a duo, they recorded mostly from 1958 to 1980, spending 11 months of every year touring, and recording dozens of albums. Despite their later fame as "pure" folk artists playing for white audiences, in the 1940s they also tried to be successful black recording performers, fronting a jump blues combo with honking sax and boogie piano, sometimes naming themselves "Brownie McGhee and his Jook House Rockers" or "Sonny Terry and his Buckshot Five," frequently with Big Chied Ellis and Champion Jack Dupree. During the blues revival in the 1960s, Terry and McGhee were very popular on the music and concert festival circuits, now and again adding new songs but usually remaining faithful to their roots and their admirers. Happy Traum, a celebrated guitar student of Brownie's, created a blues guitar tuition guide and songbook using his style. Using a tape recorder, Traum had McGhee give instruction and, between lessons, talk about his life and the blues. Guitar Styles of Brownie McGhee was made public in New York in the early 70s. The autobio part features McGhee chatting about his childhood, his musical beginnings, and a short history of early blues guitar. Brownie's final public appearance was at the 1995 Chicago Blues Festival. McGhee died from cancer of the stomach in 1996 in Oakland, CA at the age of 80.
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