Artist.......: Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee
Album........: Harlem Troubadours
Label........: Saga Blues
Genre........: Blues
Catnr........: 982 991-7
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: May-24-2006
str.date.....: Nov-01-2005
quality......: VBR/44,1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
01. Harmonica stomp 02:58
02. Whoopin the blues 02:50
03. All alone blues 03:13
04. Custard pie blues 03:14
05. Telephone blues 03:27
06. Airplane blues 02:54
07. Key to my door 02:52
08. It must be love 02:53
09. Aunt Jane's blues 02:52
10. Dissatisfied blues 02:54
11. So much trouble 02:55
12. Diamond ring 03:30
13. Run away women 02:47
14. That's the stuff 02:57
15. Bas blood 02:58
16. Dirty mistreater, don't you know 02:47
17. Tell me baby 02:56
18. Bottom blues 02:48
19. Stranger blues 02:28
20. Smiling and crying the blues 03:07
21. Mean old frisco 02:42
22. I don't worry 02:47
23. Meet you in the morning 02:37
24. Pawnshop blues 02:38
Runtime 70:04 min
Size 63,1 MB
Release Notes:
The joyous whoop that Sonny Terry naturally emitted
between raucous harp blasts was as distinctive a
signature sound as can possibly be imagined. Only a
handful of blues harmonica players wielded as much
of a lasting influence on the genre as did the
sightless Terry (Buster Brown, for one, copied the
whoop and all), who recorded some fine urban blues
as a bandleader in addition to serving as guitarist
Brownie McGhee's longtime duet partner.
Saunders Terrell's father was a folk-styled
harmonica player who performed locally at dances,
but blues wasn't part of his repertoire (he blew
reels and jigs). Terry wasn't born blind ù he lost
sight in one eye when he was five, the other at age
18. That left him with extremely limited options
for making any sort of feasible living, so he took
to the streets armed with his trusty harmonicas.
Terry soon joined forces with Piedmont pioneer
Blind Boy Fuller, first recording with the
guitarist in 1937 for Vocalion.
Terry's unique talents were given an extremely
classy airing in 1938 when he was invited to
perform at New York's Carnegie Hall at the fabled
From Spirituals to Swing concert. He recorded for
the Library of Congress that same year and cut his
first commercial sides in 1940. Terry had met
McGhee in 1939, and upon the death of Fuller, they
joined forces, playing together on a 1941 McGhee
date for OKeh and settling in New York as a duo in
1942. There they broke into the folk scene, working
alongside Lead Belly, Josh White, and Woody
Guthrie.
While Brownie McGhee was incredibly prolific in the
studio during the mid-'40s, Terry was somewhat less
so as a leader (perhaps most of his time was
occupied by his prominent role in Finian's Rainbow
on Broadway for approximately two years beginning
in 1946). There were sides for Asch and Savoy in
1944 before three fine sessions for Capitol in 1947
(the first two featuring Stick McGhee rather than
Brownie on guitar) and another in 1950.
Terry made some nice sides in an R&B mode for Jax,
Jackson, Red Robin, RCA Victor, Groove, Harlem, Old
Town, and Ember during the '50s, usually with
Brownie close by on guitar. But it was the folk
boom of the late '50s and early '60s that made
Brownie and Sonny household names (at least among
folk aficionados). They toured long and hard as a
duo, cutting a horde of endearing acoustic duet LPs
along the way, before scuttling their decades-long
partnership amidst a fair amount of reported
acrimony during the mid-'70s.