Sam Mcgee

Among the first brother acts to emerge in country music were flat-top guitar specialist Sam McGee and his fiddling sibling Kirk, both of whom also served as standout accompanists for such figures as Uncle Dave Macon and Fiddling Arthur Smith. The McGee brothers entered the world in Williamson County, Tennessee, just south of Nashville, absorbing old-time fiddle traditions from their father and other relatives. Sam launched his career in the early 1900s at a square dance; he started on banjo because guitars remained scarce across Tennessee at the time, yet soon grew captivated by the instrument and the blues numbers performed by Black railroad laborers who gathered outside his father’s store. Kirk, meanwhile, followed his father’s path on fiddle while cultivating his singing voice, preferring sentimental ballads, whereas Sam gravitated toward humorous material. Kirk likewise took an interest in blues and absorbed numbers from discs by Papa Charlie Jackson and Kokomo Arnold.

Sam established a lasting connection with Uncle Dave Macon in 1925, a relationship in which Macon functioned as both mentor and occasional competitor. Their initial recordings captured Sam’s guitar instrumentals, among them “Buck Dancer’s Choice” and “Knoxville Blues.” Two years afterward Kirk joined Macon’s Fruit Jar Drinkers and cut sides with the group in New York. Around the same period the brothers began documenting their own material; in 1928 Kirk and cousin Blythe Poteet issued several Gennett singles, including the well-received “Kicking Mule,” and shared the Grand Ole Opry stage with Macon. Beginning in 1931 the brothers performed with fiddler Arthur Smith under the name Dixieliners, ranking among the era’s most popular string bands, although they never entered the studio together despite appearing at most of Smith’s live shows.

The McGees stepped away from country music for a stretch during the 1940s. Kirk later began an intermittent decade-long collaboration with Bill Monroe. By 1955 their position at the Opry appeared threatened, prompting instructions to resume touring. They returned the following year and found favor with a fresh audience of folk enthusiasts. A 1957 reunion with Smith yielded two Folkways albums and appearances at northern folk festivals. Throughout the 1960s the brothers concentrated on old-time repertoire, releasing material together and individually on various independent labels before launching their own imprint, MBA, in the early 1970s. Their final performance at the original Ryman Auditorium occurred in 1974; by then they held senior status on the show and became the first act presented at the new Opry house. Sam died the next year in a farming accident, while Kirk continued performing both solo and with the Fruit Jar Drinkers.