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Saunders Terrell was born in Greensboro, Georgia on October 24, 1911.
His father was a folk-style harmonica player who performed locally at
dances, but blues wasn't part of his repertoire, (he blew reels and
jigs). Sonny was blinded in two childhood accidents; he lost sight in
one eye when he was five and the other at age 18. That left him with
extremely limited options for making any sort of feasible living, so
he took to the streets armed with his trusty harmonicas. Sonny could
imitate sounds ranging from moving trains to barnyard animals and he
often used his voice while playing these effects. Sonny soon joined
forces with Piedmont pioneer Blind Boy Fuller, recording
with the guitarist from 1937 to 1940.
The joyous whoop that Sonny Terry
naturally emitted between raucous harp blasts was as distinctive a
signature sound as can possibly be imagined. Only a handful of blues
harmonicists wielded as much of a lasting influence on the genre as
did Sonny Terry, who recorded some fine urban blues as a bandleader in
addition to serving as guitarist Brownie McGhee's
longtime duet partner.
In 1938 Sonny was invited to perform in
the From Spirituals to Swing Concert at New York's
Carnegie Hall. He recorded for the Library of Congress that same year
and cut his first commercial recordings in 1940. Sonny
first met Brownie McGhee in 1939 and in 1940 performed with him
and the singer Paul Robeson in Washington, D.C. Sonny and McGhee
first recorded together in 1941; subsequently they recorded
extensively and toured internationally, becoming a popular nightclub,
concert, and folk, blues, and heritage festival attraction. During his
long career, Sonny also performed with such bluesmen as Blind
Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, Leadbelly,
Josh White, Woody Guthrie, and Big Bill
Broonzy. Sonny also appeared in the Broadway musical Finian's
Rainbow (1947–48) and the play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(1955–57).
Sonny produced several nice cuts in an R&B mode for Jax,
Jackson, Red Robin, RCA Victor, Groove, Harlem, Old Town, and Ember
during the '50s, usually with Brownie close by on guitar, but it was
the folk boom of the late '50s and early '60s that made Brownie and
Sonny household names among folk aficionados. They toured together
until the mid '70s when they split up over what has been reported as a
serious disagreement between the two partners.
Sonny Terry died on March 11,
1986 in Minneola, New York.
Sources:
Encyclopedia
Britannica
Encyclopedia
Africana
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