McGhee, Brownie

byname of Walter Brown McGhee

(born Nov. 30, 1915, Knoxville, Tenn., U.S.—died Feb. 16, 1996, Oakland, Calif.) American blues singer, guitarist, pianist, songwriter, and longtime partner of the vocalist and harmonica player Sonny Terry.

The son of a singer and guitarist, McGhee developed an interest in the guitar at about age six and was taught by his sister to play the piano at age eight. He was impressed by itinerant blues musicians and dropped out of high school in the late 1920s to perform for carnivals, minstrel shows, dances, and informal gatherings throughout Tennessee. In the mid-1930s he led his own washboard band. McGhee first met Terry in North Carolina in 1939 and worked with him and the singer Paul Robeson in Washington, D.C., in 1940. Settling in New York City in the early 1940s, he roomed with Terry and the blues musician Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter), and the three performed with Woody Guthrie and others as the Headline Singers. Terry and McGhee's partnership began in 1941 and lasted (with frequent interruptions) until the late 1970s. From 1942 to 1950 McGhee ran his own music school, Home of the Blues, in Harlem.

McGhee's first recordings were for the OKeh label in 1940; he later recorded extensively with Terry and others, exhibiting an authentic rural style. He appeared in Tennessee Williams' play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway (1955–57) and toured with that show. McGhee recorded several motion-picture soundtracks, including that for A Face in the Crowd (1957).