Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry: Red River Blues - Rare Performances 1948-1974 (2003)

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Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry: Red River Blues - Rare Performances 1948-1974 (2003)

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Sonny Terry started playing harp in his teens, as a blind street musician in North Carolina. After a stint with a medicine show, he hooked p with the popular ragtime singer/guitarist, Blind Boy Fuller. When he was 23 he made his recording debut, backing up Fuller. Barely a year later in 1938, he was wowing New York audiences at Carnegie Hall, appearing solo as part of John Hammond's Spirituals to Swing concert. After Fuller's death in 1940, Terry teamed with Brownie McGhee and the two began a long lived musical partnership. It took them from the socially conscious New York folk music scene of the 1940s, where they lived, worked and recorded with people like Leadbelly, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, to the concert halls of Europe as premier blues artists in the 1960s. Along the way Sonny's rhythmically infectious country-styled harp backed up dancers in the Broadway musical, Finian's Rainbow. Sonny and Brownie recorded copiously and were regulars in folk clubs and festivals, paving the way for today s spate of unplugged blues artist. In 1982 the duo split up and Sonny worked solo even recording an album with Johnny Winter. Terry died in 1986, leaving behind many recordings and numerous fans as well as harp players trying to duplicate his virtuosity. Sonny Terry was a true originator and a powerful entertainer.
For some 30 years, they embodied "country blues" for folk music audiences around the globe. Sonny Terry (1911-1986) and Brownie McGhee (1915-1996) were once ubiquitous, and as such tended to be taken for granted in the halcyon days of the 1960s blues rediscoveries. But nearly two decades have passed since the perennial team parted, and the 16 performances here remind us of this superb duo's complementary strengths: Sonny, the achetypal country blues harp player, whooping and "fox chasing" in a style as old as any known; Brownie, the more urbane, but no less passionate exemplar of the southeast's Piedmont-style blues, a stunning guitarist and singer. This dvd career retrospective begins with two pieces filmed for the Library of Congress in 1948, including a rendition of John Henry with Woody Guthrie. Pete Seeger appears as appreciative host to the duo for two songs from his Rainbow Quest TV show. A wonderful medley filmed in 1970 of Red River Blues/Crow Jane offers two of the oldest known pieces in the Piedmont blues repertoire. Sonny's signature harmonica showpiece, Whoopin' the Blues is heard in a 1973 BBC performance, and a tour de force Rock Island Line closes this exciting survey of a duo who, more than anyone else, introduced a generation to the power and glory of country blues. Titles include: John Henry, Easy Rider, Fighting a Losing Battle, Couldn't Believe My Eyes, Red River Blues, Crow Jane, Backwater Blues, Life is a Gamble, My Father's Words, Walking My Blues Away, Whoopin' the Blues, Walk On, Ride Ride Ride, Burnt Child (Afraid of Fire), Born With The Blues, Rock Island Line.

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Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry: Red River Blues - Rare Performances 1948-1974 (2003)

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Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry: Red River Blues - Rare Performances 1948-1974 (2003)

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Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry: Red River Blues - Rare Performances 1948-1974 (2003)

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Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry: Red River Blues - Rare Performances 1948-1974 (2003)

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Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry: Red River Blues - Rare Performances 1948-1974 (2003)

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