Sonny Terry

Among the early blues harmonica specialists, Sonny Terry ventured outside the genre’s usual boundaries in ways few had attempted previously. Partnering with guitarist Brownie McGhee, he appeared on many folk sessions alongside Woody Guthrie, built a parallel career as an actor that reached both television and Broadway, and retained the piercing high-pitched whoopin’ approach that defined his playing.

Saunders Terrell entered the world on October 24, 1911, in Greensboro, Georgia. Two separate mishaps left him without sight by age sixteen. His father performed on harmonica at local gatherings and introduced Terry to the instrument while he was still young. Unable to continue in farming because of his vision, Terry chose instead to pursue life as a blues singer. He began making regular trips to Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina, where he performed on street corners for whatever coins passersby offered. In 1934 he formed a friendship with the well-known guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. Fuller persuaded Terry to relocate to Durham, and the pair quickly built a loyal local audience. By 1937 they received an invitation to travel to New York and cut sides for the Vocalion label. The following year Terry returned to the city to join John Hammond’s celebrated Spirituals to Swing concert, during which he delivered his signature piece “Mountain Blues.” Back in Durham he resumed regular performances with Fuller and also encountered guitarist Brownie McGhee, who would serve as his intermittent accompanist for the next twenty years. J.B. Long, Blind Boy’s manager, initially dispatched McGhee to look after Terry, reasoning that McGhee might thereby gain access to some of the same engagements. A close friendship soon developed, and after Fuller’s death in 1941 Terry and McGhee relocated to New York. The move yielded immediate results; steady concert work followed, both as a duo and in solo formats. Terry became a sought-after session musician, appearing on recordings by folk figures such as Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger. Around the same period an acting opportunity arose when he joined the long-running Broadway cast of Finian’s Rainbow in 1946. By the middle of the 1950s the pair began expanding their reach, touring widely beyond New York and issuing numerous recordings for Folkways, Savoy, and Fantasy that attracted listeners across racial lines in both folk and blues circles. During those same years Terry and McGhee took roles in the Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, further widening their exposure. In the early 1960s the duo appeared at folk and blues festivals across the globe while Terry also collaborated with singer Harry Belafonte and performed in television commercials. Throughout the 1970s Terry maintained an active travel schedule, pausing only to complete his instructional volume The Harp Styles of Sonny Terry. By the mid-1970s the pressures of constant touring produced personal friction, ultimately ending the long partnership between McGhee and Terry. Younger listeners nevertheless continued to discover Terry through the Johnny Winter-produced album Whoopin’, issued on the Alligator label and featuring both Winter and Willie Dixon. Winter had earlier revitalized Muddy Waters’s career with the album Hard Again and sought to achieve a comparable resurgence for Terry. Entering the 1980s, advancing age limited Terry’s activities; he ceased recording and accepted only occasional live engagements. He died in 1986, the same year he was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame.