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Sonny Terry Whoopin’ The Blues 1958-1974 Sonny Terry Whoopin’ The Blues 1958-1974

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Page 1: Sonny Terry Sonny Terry

Sonny TerryWhoopin’ The Blues

1958-1974

Sonny TerryWhoopin’ The Blues

1958-1974

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Sonny TerryWhoopin’ The Blues

1958–1974

It’s tempting to wonder if there wasn’t something inthe water down in Durham North Carolina, in the thir-ties. How else to explain the amazing array of musicaltalent around? The area spawned not only two blindblack guitar players, both exponents of the melodic andrhythmically intricate style known as Piedmont pick-ing, but also the country harp talents of another blindblack man, Sonny Terry, noted for his distinctive chug-ging rhythms and falsetto vocal whoops. Blind Boy Fullerand Gary Davis made their first recordings in a NewYork studio in July 1935. They both played a raggy styleof syncopated blues and both were major influences onguitar players to come. (It’s worth noting that Davis cuttwo blues numbers – his title of Reverend and spiritualrepertoire came a few years later ). Fuller cut four tunes,including “Rattlesnaking Daddy”, his first hit. In subse-quent sessions Fuller recorded some 52 titles, and morehits, including “Trucking My Blues Away” and “Step ItUp And Go”. A couple of years later, in December 1937,Fuller was joined in the studios by his then 26 year old

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playing partner, Sonny Terry. Together they’d been work-ing the streets and tobacco sheds together aroundDurham and Terry roomed in Fuller’s house. Obviouslythe area was fertile for street musicians depending onchange from passerbys – it was where the work andmoney was. Sonny’s energetic accompaniment mesheddeftly with Fullers driving lines, and he wound up beingused on 4 or 5 more sessions over the next three years.

At the time the harp was still considered somewhatof a novelty instrument. It was used as accompanimentin jug bands where it’s high tones played a penetratingcounterpoint to the huffing bass tones of clay jugs, or inwhite string bands to play fiddle-like melody lines. Thefew solo harp recordings were often barnyard animalimitations, train pieces (with steam engine and whistlesounds), or fox-chase numbers, where the baying ofhunting dogs was duplicated. (See GREAT HARP PLAY-ERS 1927-30, Matchbox 209, for a collection of soloharp pieces). Terry had quick instinct and was able toweave in and out of the vocal-guitar lines with a deft-ness that set him apart. His plaintive vocal-like tonescommented on lyrics and underscored feelings, hiswhoops harked back to field-hollers of down homesharecroppers. He also used chords percussively, chop-ping them off abruptly, so they worked almost as asnaredrum-like punctuation.

Sonny was born Saunders Terrell, October 24 1911,in Greensboro, Georgia. He told Kent Cooper (author ofthe excellent biographical/instructional book, HarpStyles Of Sonny Terry, where many of these stories comefrom), that his father was a tenant farmer. Sonny wasone of eight kids. He recalled his father playing harpafter a tough days work in the fields and at Saturdaynight fish frys: “buck dances, reels, and jigs – stuff youcan dance to. I never heard no blues ‘till I was abouteighteen years old.” (You might want to check out HAR-MONICA MASTERS, Yazoo 2019, for a really interest-ing compilation of string-band and blues tunes with harpaccompaniment – both styles being played equally byblacks and whites. The notes make the point that whitesrecorded more harp blues in the 1920s than did blacks.

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It wasn’t until the 1930s that the pendulum swung theother way).

From the time he was eight on, Terry would grabthe harmonica off the mantelpiece while dad was at workand fool with it, but he didn’t really start playing seri-ously until he went blind. There were two separate acci-dents – the first when he was eleven. He was poundinga stick on a chair, when it broke, it blinded him in hisleft eye. He managed to stay in school and continueworking the farm, driving tractor, until another accident,when he was 16. A neighboring boy threw a piece ofmetal, it caught Sonny’s right eye, and left him withonly a sense of light and dark. Sonny was ashamed tobe seen and spent two years hiding in the house.

It was after the family moved to Shelby, North Caro-lina, that Terry broke out of his shell. After his dad waskilled in a road accident, Terry went out on his own,started going to dances and began playing for changeon the streets. There weren’t too many career optionsfor a blind black youth in depression times, but Sonnygot by, making 3 or 4 dollars a weekend, (good moneyin those days), playing near the tobacco plants with aguitar partner. Later he hooked up with a medicine show,traveling the back roads of North Carolina for $3 a week.

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It was Sonny’s job to draw a crowd with his impassionedplaying. He learned to use showmanship, making hishands flutter and wave as he played. Then Doc wouldgo into his sales talk, and hawk his “medicine”, whichwas basically watered liquor, “good for what ails you”.

After a year or so the money got funny, and Sonnyleft, going back to street–playing. When sometime laterhe ran across Doc in a bar and demanded his money,he was told to get lost, whereupon Sonny pulled out apistol, and managed to put three shots into the seat ofDocs’ white pants. According to Sonny, the cops notonly turned him loose, but gave back his pistol.

One day while playing on a corner in Wadesboro,the 23 year old Terry heard a nearby guitar player,sounding “pretty good”. Blind Boy Fuller thought thesame of Sonny’s playing, and they wound up playingtogether for several hours. Fuller told Terry if he evergot to Durham to look him up and not long after thatTerry did. The two began a regular route all along High-way 70, sometimes joined by Oh Red, a washboardplayer. The three made a swinging good-time blues ag-gregation, suitable for Saturday afternoon go-to-townshopping crowds, just right for picnics.

It was while living in Fuller’s house that Terry firstheard the Grand Old Opry broadcasts with harpistDeford Bailey, the only black performer on the show.Bailey was a talented instrumentalist who played in acountry-western melodically oriented style mostly in firstposition. Terry was impressed enough to pick up his“Alcoholic Blues”. He’d begun playing with a lot ofstyles, but with Fuller he turned mostly to blues play-ing, his harp dancing with Fuller’s rag time lilt. Besidesmusic Terry also had a few sidelines going as well – hesold liquor by the glass out of a half–gallon jug, and tokeep up his $25 a month pension also worked in theDurham blind factory making baskets and chair bot-toms.

Fuller and Terry made trips to New York, Chicagoand Memphis to do their recordings for Vocalion label,some of which were heard by the jazz impresario JohnHammond. In 1938, he sent Terry and Oh Red a ticket

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to come to NYC for the “Spirituals To Swing” concerttaking place at Carnegie Hall. The idea was to trace thehistory of black music in America, and Sonny was meantto represent downhome blues. (Hammond had beenlooking for Robert Johnson as well, only to discover hisdeath not so long before). Terry wowed the NY audi-ence with his full-bore style, the recordings show himamply filling the hall with just his harp and falsetto vo-cals. Joined by Red he turns out a frenetic “John Henry”.While there he did some recording for the archives atthe Library of Congress, (eight titles) then he and Redgot on a bus and went back to Durham.

Not long after, Terry met Brownie McGhee, who wasworking with a harp player named Jordan Webb. Ac-cording to Terry, Fuller said upon hearing them play“You can sing all right, but you can’t play no guitar”.Terry continued, “He learned pretty fast, next time Iheard him he sounded real good.” McGhee had recordedseveral sides for Okeh, including some Fuller covers,easy blues. In 1941, two months after Fullers death fromcomplications of kidney disease, recording manager J.B.Long had Brownie cut a memorial side, using Fuller’ssteel bodied National guitar. He was billed as Blind BoyFuller #2. McGhee also cut some spiritual numbers us-ing Fuller’s “Brother George” nom-de-plume, accom-panied by Sonny and Red.

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McGhee and Terry hooked up for a trip north to playa folk concert at a school in Washington DC, where theymet Leadbelly for the first time. When they returnedsouth, they continued busking on the streets back inDurham. They made a good team. Brownie’s adeptsingle note runs and loping smooth style were a perfectcomplement to Terrys falsetto swoops and rhythmicbursts, Terry’s harp, filled holes and added urgency toMcGhee’s mellow vocals. In 1942, during trips up toNew York, Sonny and Brownie teamed up with the Okieballadeer, poet and rambling songster, Woody Guthriefor a series of “hootenanny” concerts. The group waslater known as Woody’s Headline Singers, and split $15a night three ways. They played union halls, bars andpolitical rallies. They worked well together, a short clipof them doing “John Henry” appears in the Pete Seegerfilm To Hear Your Banjo Play. The duo moved in whereWoody stayed, the Almanac Singers house, a looselyrun commune in Greenwich Village where the socially-conscious singing group headquartered. Later theymoved over to Leadbellys’ place on East 9th Street andwound up staying there for two years. Leadbelly wasworking then at the Village Vanguard with balladeer JoshWhite; they had a regular gig. There were frequent BlueMonday jam sessions with Woody, Leadbelly, Seeger,White and Sonny and Brownie, playing and drinking thenight away, swapping songs and tall tales. These turnedout to be warm-ups for some freewheeling recordingsessions for Moe Asch in April 1944. The money wasn’tmuch ($10 a night among the group), but they had afree hand to record whatever they wanted and somegreat music was put down over a 2 week period, muchof it only now surfacing on various CD reissues. Woodywrote of the sessions in his “American Folksong” (OakPublications, 1961); “We tried hilltop and sunny moun-tain harmonies and wilder yells and whoops of the deadsea deserts, and all of the swampy southland and buggymud bottom sounds that we could make....Sonny Terryblew and whipped, beat, fanned and petted his har-monica, cooed to it like a weedhill turtle dove, cried toit like some worried woman come to ease his worried

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mind. He blew it down two–to–one and let it down easy,flipped his lip over and across and his tongue sendingall of his wind into one hole, straining the reed with toomuch pressure and making it sound like it had severalside tones and tones that dance between. He put thetobacco sheds of North and South Carolina in it, and allof the blistered and hurt and hardened hands cheatedand left empty, hurt and left crying, robbed and left hun-gry, pilfered and left starving, beaten and left dream-ing. He rolled down the trains that the colored hand can-not drive, only clean and wash down. He blew into thewood holes and brassy reeds the tale and the wails ofLost John running away from the dogs of the chain gangguards, and the chain gang is the landlord that is neveraround anywhere....”

In late 1943 Brownie and Sonny moved up to 125thstreet in Harlem, across the street from each other. Whenthey worked the streets there they did better, sometimespulling in $100 a weekend, good money then. One daythe pair had a tiff over a woman and Sonny decided hebetter go out for himself – he tried singing in a regularvoice, (up till then, it had been mostly falsetto), andfound out it wasn’t bad. When he and Brownie made upand went out again, they split the singing for the firsttime and the duo jelled in the form it would take overthe next 20 odd years of performing together, alternat-ing vocals or sharing harmonies. Street playing was get-ting dangerous; they finally quit for good after some-body dropped a jug of water on them from a building upabove. Asch Records put out a volume of 78’s featuringWoody and Sonny Terry called CHAIN GANG SONGS.There were some commercial recordings for the Savoylabel starting in 1944 which continued until 1952, somethree years of sessions for Capitol, as well as other smalllabel singles over the years up until 1960. Brownie re-corded without Sonny in band settings as well, andthough there were minor hits, not much ever really hap-pened for either of them in the commercial market; theywere a little too “downhome folky” for R&B buyers butnot for the Broadway stage. “Finian’s Rainbow” waslooking for country–styled black music to use in its pro-

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duction dance numbers, and after auditioning a num-ber of musicians they wound up hiring Terry to play aversion of his “Lost John” piece for a dance number, sixnights a week for two years. The $300 per week stipendconvinced him to play the piece the same way everynight, a story he tells on himself with gusto as he intro-duces the “Shouting The Blues” clip seen here.

In 1948, Sonny married the woman he’d been liv-ing with; Roxie became his first wife. Leadbelly, who’dbeen ailing for some time, with a progressive muscledisease, died in late 1949. By next spring Sonny andBrownie were booking themselves, doing club dates aswell as rent parties, fish fries and barbecues, gigs whichthey kept up until the mid 1950s. The duo was hiredtogether for yet another Broadway production, “The CatOn A Hot Tin Roof”, lasting for almost a three year run.

The duo filled in on some English dates for Big BillBroonzy, the Chicago based bluesman who had a sec-ond career as a solo “folk-blues” acoustic bluesmanoverseas. Their tour was well received, and led to regu-lar trips across the ocean. In 1952 Asch recorded Sonnyfor his first album. SONNY TERRY’S WASHBOARDBAND was a 10" LP album of Sonny with washtub bassand percussion band backup, doing many of his regu-lar tunes , like “Louise”, Fuller’s “Custard Pie” andSonny’s “Baby Change The Lock”, an autobiographical

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tale of womanly re-venge. In 1953, in anapartment with goodfriend Alec Sewardon occasional guitar,Terry recorded an-other album whicheventually came outon the jazz label Riv-erside Records Folk-lore Series. Manningthe tape machinewas a young ivy-league folkmusicand blues fan namedJac Holzman, wholater founded ElektraRecords, an influen-tial label in the folkboom of the 1960s.Half a year laterSonny recordedHARMONICA & VOCAL SOLO’s, another 10" album forFolkways. It included the Deford Bailey piece “Alco-holic Blues” as well as “Lost John” and the spiritual“Beautiful City”.

In 1955, Sonny and Brownie recorded as a duo forAsch for the first time, and the result was their first LPalbum. Over the years they recorded prolifically, end-ing up with some 19 pages of listings (as duo and indi-viduals) in discographies. In summer of 1957 Sonny &Brownie were on tour with “The Cat On A Hot Tin Roof”in Chicago, where the ailing Big Bill Broonzy suggestedto radio host/author Studs Terkel that the three of themteam up for a broadcast, showcasing their own individualstyles of blues. After the evening’s show, the group metand over several hours played and reminisced, givingtheir feelings on the blues. Following Bill’s death in mid–1958, the program was released as a Folkways album.A 1958 session for Folkways with Sonny, J.C. Burrisand Sticks McGhee, Brownie’s cousin) resulted in the

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ON THE ROAD album, and a small tour with Burris onpercussion. This is where the first several video seg-ments here come from – shot by Pete Seeger in 1958;they showcase Sonnys terpsichorean abilities. Thatsame year the duo recorded several albums in England,as well as some broadcasts on BBC.

By 1959 Brownie was working with a band in NJ,and Sonny went on a 2 month concert tour with PeteSeeger. Sonny and Brownie also played the July New-port Folk Festival together, the first of many such ap-pearances. The team got together with Lightnin’ Hopkinsand Big Joe Williams in 1960 for an album called DOWNSOUTH SUMMIT MEETING, a loose song-swapping ses-sion where some pretty disparately styled individualsmanaged to make interesting music together – it wasthe first blues “supersession”. Later Sonny and Browniesigned with Seeger’s booking agent, but found his feesand attitude hard to take, and finally quit after a low–buck Canadian gig. In 1962 they were hired to be anopening act on a tour for Harry Belafonte, (who gaveBob Dylan one of his few sideman recording gigs, it’sBob’s harp on “Midnight Special”), then popular on thegrowing folk concert–club circuit.

The next couple of videos showcase Sonny, backedby Brownie and Pete Seeger on Seeger’s “RainbowQuest” TV show, in 1966. (There’s also footage of GaryDavis playing before a gaping Donovan on anotherQuest entry, seen on Vestapol Video 13003, LEGENDSOF COUNTRY BLUES GUITAR ).

The first color film here was shot in 1969 by YashaAginsky, a film maker who also did features on Cajunmusic, Mike Seeger and Alice Gerard as well. The restof the footage features Sonny backed by Brownie. Butthings were getting a little tough, tensions between thetwo were beginning to grow. (Terry told Kent Cooper inthe late 1960s that he and Brownie were still arguingover the money split from a gig some 25 years ago).

Sonny’s wife, Roxie, died in 1967, then a year laterSonny met Emma who was with him until his death.McGhee and Terry continued working clubs and folk fes-tivals regularly, though with increasing rancor. It was an

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open secret thatthey required sepa-rate dressing roomsin the 1970s. Therewas a broadcast ap-pearance at a 1982Canadian Festivalwhere the two seembarely able to oc-cupy the stage to-gether. I f Sonnystarts playing whileBrownie is singing,he stops and waitsunti l Sonny sub-sides, and some-times he would start

songs in keys impossible for Terry to play in. By 1982they finally split up, either working solo or with variousother musicians, though neither on his own had the draw-ing power of the duo. Sonny was “semiretired” when in1984 Johnny Winter produced one of Terry’s better latealbums. Featuring Winter on slide guitar, bassist WillieDixon and drummer Styve Homnick, it showed Sonnywith all the grit and grain of yore with sympathetic yetfunky backing. (WHOOPIN Alligator 4734).

Sonny died March 12, 1986 at age 75, in Mineola,NY after a two week hospital stay. Brownie went on,performing until not long before his death in February1996. Together they helped pave the way for the bluesrevival in both England and the US, and their music isstill just as vital and entertaining today, its charm undi-minished by time.

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Some Notes OnSonny’s Harp Style

The first thing you notice is that Sonny is left–handed, which means he holds the harp “upside down”(with the low notes to his right) in his right hand. Thisway, when he wraps his left hand over to cup and getwah-wah tremolo effects, he can completely close overthe lower octaves on the harp.

On the majority of the tracks here Sonny is using aBb harp, playing in cross, or 2nd position (i.e. the keyof F). It’s kind of fragmentary and hard to hear, but hemay be in 1st position when he accompanies his danc-ing on the opening clips. When he’s playing behindBrownie’s vocals he uses a lot of single notes, playingmelody variations, mixed with occasional chords to fill.(As on “Poor Man” and “Midnight Special”). One ofSonny’s most distinctive traits is the percussive chordsheard on “Crazy About You Baby”, “Rock Island Line”,and on both versions of his signature piece, “ShoutingThe Blues” and “Whooping The Blues”. He gets the ef-fect by using tongue slaps to the roof of the mouth whilesimultaneously slapping his cupped hands closed, forthat sharp chopped effect. The latter two pieces alsoshowcase his rapid alternation between harp and fal-setto vocal tones – as he builds the tempo the excite-ment increases. The solo pieces give a good chance tocheck out his tone and the sounds he achieves by a mixof throat vibrato and tongue flutters, producing a mel-low warbling sound; check out “My Baby Done ChangedThe Lock.”

Sonny plays with a nice mix of melodic improvisa-tion and chordal rhythm accompaniment, suited to bothsolo and duo situations. He knows how to listen andwhen to lay back. Spaces and volume dynamics are asimportant as any other effect in his repertoire.

Tony Glover

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Page 15: Sonny Terry Sonny Terry

Sonny Terry started playing harp in his teens, as a blind streetmusician in North Carolina. After a stint with a medicine show, hehooked up with the popular ragtime singer/guitarist, Blind Boy Fuller.When he was 23 he made his recording debut, backing up Fuller. Barelya year later in 1938, he was wowing New York audiences at CarnegieHall, appearing solo as part of John Hammond's Spirituals To Swingconcert. After Fuller's death in 1940, Terry teamed with BrownieMcGhee and the two began a long lived musical partnership. It tookthem from the socially conscious New York folk music scene of the1940s, where they lived, worked and recorded with people like Leadbelly,Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, to the concert halls of Europe aspremier blues artists in the 1960s. Along the way Sonny's rhythmicallyinfectious country-styled harp backed up dancers in the Broadwaymusical, Finian's Rainbow.

Sonny and Brownie recorded copiously and were regulars in folkclubs and festivals, paving the way for todays spate of "unplugged"blues artists. In 1982 the duo split up and Sonny worked solo evenrecording an album with Johnny Winter. Terry died in 1986, leavingbehind many recordings and numerous fans – as well as harp playerstrying to duplicate his virtuosity. Sonny Terry was a true originator anda powerful entertainer.

Tunes include: Crazy About You Baby, Buck Dance, Hand Jive, BurntChild (Afraid Of Fire), Rock Island Line, Shoutin' The Blues, My Baby

Done Changed The Lock, Sweet Woman Blues, John Henry, MotorcycleBlues, I Got My Eyes On You, My Baby's So Fine, Poor Man/Fighting A

Losing Battle, Midnight Special, Packing Up & Whoopin' The Blues.

Vestapol 13057Running Time: 55 minutes • B/W & Color

Cover photo by David GahrNationally distributed by Rounder Records,One Camp Street, Cambridge, MA 02140

Representation to Music Stores byMel Bay Publications

© 2004 Vestapol ProductionsA division of Stefan Grossman's

Guitar Workshop, Inc. 0 1 1 6 7 1 30579 0

ISBN: 1-57940-987-3