Sonny Terry
Sonny Terry | |
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jaw harp | |
Years active | 1930s–1980s |
Labels |
Saunders Terrell (October 24, 1911 – March 11, 1986),[1] known as Sonny Terry, was an American Piedmont blues and folk musician,[2] who was known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers and occasionally imitations of trains and fox hunts.
Career
Terry was born in
In 1938, Terry was invited to play at Carnegie Hall for the first From Spirituals to Swing concert,[1] and later that year he recorded for the Library of Congress. He recorded his first commercial sides in 1940. Among his most famous works are "Old Jabo", a song about a man bitten by a snake, and "Lost John", which demonstrates Terry's precisely honed breath control.
Despite their fame as "pure" folk artists, in the 1940s Terry and McGhee fronted a jump blues combo with honking saxophone and rolling piano, which was variously billed as "Brownie McGhee and his Jook House Rockers" or "Sonny Terry and his Buckshot Five".
Terry was in the 1947 original cast of the
Terry and McGhee were both recipients of a 1982 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.[6] That year's fellowships were the first bestowed by the NEA.
Terry died of
Discography
- Songs for Victory: Music for Political Action, with the Union Boys (1944)
- Sonny Terry's Washboard Band (Folkways, 1955)
- Folk Songs of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee (Roulette, 1958)
- Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee (Fantasy 3254, 1958)
- Blues with Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee (Folkways, 1959)
- Down South Summit Meetin' (World Pacific, 1960), with Brownie McGhee, Lightnin' Hopkins and Big Joe Williams
- Down Home Blues (Bluesville, 1960), with Brownie McGhee
- Blues in My Soul (Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry album) (Bluesville 1033, September 1960)
- Brownie's Blues (Bluesville, 1960), with Brownie McGhee
- Sonny's Story (Bluesville, 1960)
- Last Night Blues (Bluesville, 1960 [1961]), with Lightnin' Hopkins
- Sonny Is King (Bluesville, 1960/62 [1963]), with Lightnin' Hopkins and Big Joe Williams
- Blues Hoot (Horizon, 1961 [1963])
- Sonny Terry and His Mouth Harp (Stinson, 1963 [1963])
- Chain Gang Special (Everest FS-206 1965?)
- Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry at
- Sing & Play (Society, 1966)
- Sonny Terry's New Sound: The Jawharp in Blues and Folk Music, with Brownie McGhee & J. C. Burris (Folkways, 1968)
- A Long Way from Home (BluesWay, 1969)
- I Couldn't Believe My Eyes (BluesWay, 1969 [1973])
- Sonny & Brownie (A&M Records, 1973)
- Robbin' the Grave (Blue Labor, 1974)
- Whoopin', with Johnny Winter and Willie Dixon (Alligator, 1984)
- Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry Sing (Smithsonian Folkways, 1990)
- Whoopin' the Blues: The Capitol Recordings, 1947–1950 (Capitol, 1995)
See also
- American folk music
- Blind musicians
- Harmonica
- Jaw harp
- List of blues musicians
- List of harmonicists
- List of people on stamps of the United States
- Union Boys
References
- ^ a b c d Campbell, Al. "Sonny Terry: Biography". AllMusic.com. Retrieved October 7, 2015.
- ISBN 1-904041-96-5.
- ^ Terry, Sonny (as told to Kent Cooper) (1975). The Harp Styles of Sonny Terry. Oak Publications. p. 7. Other sources give his place of birth as Greensboro, North Carolina.
- ^ ISBN 0-85112-673-1.
- ISBN 1-85868-255-X.
- ^ "NEA National Heritage Fellowships 1982". Arts.gov. National Endowment for the Arts. Archived from the original on September 29, 2020. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
- ^ Doc Rock. "The 1980s". TheDeadRockStarsClub.com. Retrieved October 7, 2015.
- ^ "Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, At the Bunkhouse: Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic.com. Retrieved October 7, 2015.