Biography
Sterling Magee, a blues guitarist, vocalist, and composer, joined forces with harmonica player Adam Gussow after both had already paid their musical dues. The partnership began on the streets, specifically at the corner of Seventh Avenue and 125th Street, where crowds quickly gathered as commuters paused to listen during their evening walks home. Over the next five years the pair met nearly every afternoon when weather cooperated; Magee would unfold a simple stool and arrange his drum kit, guitar, and amplifier, then generate a full ensemble sound through foot stomps, tambourines, hi-hat cymbals, and guitar.
The duo carved out a gritty, electric urban blues style that few other acts could approximate. Gussow’s precise harmonica lines meshed with Magee’s open-toned, driving guitar work—Magee, who liked to be addressed as Mister Satan, regularly introduced his partner onstage as Mister Gussow. Their reshaping of modern blues is illustrated by the track “I Want You” from the Harlem Blues debut, which later appeared on Rhino Records’ Modern Blues of the 1990s anthology.
Born May 20, 1936, in Mississippi and raised in Florida, Magee started out playing piano in churches in both states. Session work in the 1960s placed him on recordings by James Brown, King Curtis, George Benson, and others; he returned to Harlem street performances in the 1980s and then toured extensively with Gussow throughout the following decade. Gussow, born April 3, 1958, and raised in Rockland County, New York, had studied at Princeton before asking Magee one day in 1985 if he could sit in on harmonica during a street encounter outside his uptown apartment. That request launched a musical and personal alliance that has persisted, with occasional interruptions, into the twenty-first century.
Several acclaimed albums appeared on the now-defunct Flying Fish label, among them Harlem Blues in 1991 and Mother Mojo in 1993. Satan & Adam also performed in U2’s Rattle and Hum film. On Mother Mojo the duo delivered funk-infused reinterpretations of Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” and Joe Turner’s “Crawdad Hole.” In 1996 they issued Living on the River through the New York State-based Rave On Records imprint.
Magee eventually left Harlem for Virginia and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1998, the same year Gussow released the memoir Mister Satan’s Apprentice recounting their years together. Although the partnership seemed finished, Magee resurfaced in Gulfport, Florida, and Gussow, by then an associate professor at the University of Mississippi, rejoined him for performances in the mid-2000s. Renewed activity followed, including Gussow’s 2007 book Journeyman’s Road, work on a feature-length documentary, the 2008 digital archival collection Word on the Street, and the 2011 album Back in the Game.
The duo carved out a gritty, electric urban blues style that few other acts could approximate. Gussow’s precise harmonica lines meshed with Magee’s open-toned, driving guitar work—Magee, who liked to be addressed as Mister Satan, regularly introduced his partner onstage as Mister Gussow. Their reshaping of modern blues is illustrated by the track “I Want You” from the Harlem Blues debut, which later appeared on Rhino Records’ Modern Blues of the 1990s anthology.
Born May 20, 1936, in Mississippi and raised in Florida, Magee started out playing piano in churches in both states. Session work in the 1960s placed him on recordings by James Brown, King Curtis, George Benson, and others; he returned to Harlem street performances in the 1980s and then toured extensively with Gussow throughout the following decade. Gussow, born April 3, 1958, and raised in Rockland County, New York, had studied at Princeton before asking Magee one day in 1985 if he could sit in on harmonica during a street encounter outside his uptown apartment. That request launched a musical and personal alliance that has persisted, with occasional interruptions, into the twenty-first century.
Several acclaimed albums appeared on the now-defunct Flying Fish label, among them Harlem Blues in 1991 and Mother Mojo in 1993. Satan & Adam also performed in U2’s Rattle and Hum film. On Mother Mojo the duo delivered funk-infused reinterpretations of Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” and Joe Turner’s “Crawdad Hole.” In 1996 they issued Living on the River through the New York State-based Rave On Records imprint.
Magee eventually left Harlem for Virginia and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1998, the same year Gussow released the memoir Mister Satan’s Apprentice recounting their years together. Although the partnership seemed finished, Magee resurfaced in Gulfport, Florida, and Gussow, by then an associate professor at the University of Mississippi, rejoined him for performances in the mid-2000s. Renewed activity followed, including Gussow’s 2007 book Journeyman’s Road, work on a feature-length documentary, the 2008 digital archival collection Word on the Street, and the 2011 album Back in the Game.
Albums
