Sonny Terry

Sonny Terry
Sonny Terry performing live at Nambassa in 1981.
Background information
Birth name	Saunders Terrell
Born	October 24, 1911(1911-10-24)
Origin	North Carolina, United States
Died	March 11, 1986(1986-03-11) (aged 74)
Genres	Harmonica blues Piedmont blues[1] Country blues Blues revival Folk-blues East Coast blues
Instruments	Harmonica, Jaw harp
Years active	1930s—1980s
Labels	Atlantic, ABC
Associated acts	Brownie McGhee Sonny Terry and His Night Owls

Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry (24 October 1911 - 11 March 1986^[2]) was a blind American Piedmont blues musician.^[1] He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.

Career

Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia.^[3] His father, a farmer, taught him to play basic blues harp as a youth. He sustained injuries to his eyes and lost his sight by the time he was 16, which prevented him from doing farm work himself.^[2] In order to earn a living Terry was forced to play music. He began playing in Shelby, North Carolina. After his father died he began playing in the trio of Piedmont blues-style guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. When Fuller died in 1941, he established a long-standing musical relationship with Brownie McGhee, and the pair recorded numerous songs together. The duo became well-known among white audiences, as they joined the growing folk movement of the 1950s and 1960s. This included collaborations with Styve Homnick, Woody Guthrie and Moses Asch, producing Folkways Records (now Smithsonian/Folkways) classic recordings.

In 1938 Terry was invited to play at Carnegie Hall for the first From Spirituals to Swing concert,^[2] and later that year he recorded for the Library of Congress. In 1940 Terry recorded his first commercial sides. Some of his most famous works include "Old Jabo" a song about a man bitten by a snake and "Lost John" in this he demonstrates his amazing breath control combined with overblows and bends.

Despite their fame as "pure" folk artists, in the 1940s, Terry and McGhee fronted a jump blues combo with honking saxophone and rolling piano that was variously called Brownie McGhee and his Jook House Rockers or Sonny Terry and his Buckshot Five.

Terry was also in the 1947 original cast of the Broadway musical comedy, Finian's Rainbow.^[4]

Terry died from natural causes at Mineola, New York, in March 1986,^[5] the year he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.^[2] He died three days before Crossroads was released in theaters.

In Popular Culture

Terry's rendition of the traditional song "Fox Chase", was used by the experimental filmmaker Len Lye as the soundtrack for his short film, Color Cry (1952). "Old Lost John" was used by Werner Herzog twice: at the conclusion of his 1977 feature film Stroszek and also during shooting scene in Bad Lieutenant. Port of Call: New Orleans (2009). He also appeared in The Colour Purple directed by Steven Spielberg. With Brownie McGhee, he appeared in the 1979 Steve Martin comedy The Jerk. Terry collaborated with Ry Cooder on "Walkin' Away Blues" as well as a cover of Robert Johnson's "Crossroad Blues" for the 1986 film Crossroads. More recently Terry's track "Whoopin' The Blues" was used for a EON Wind Farm brand commercial. It also appeared in the film 24 Hour Party People (Winterbottom, 2002).

Sonny Terry's harmonica is sampled in the song "Love is Eternal Sacred Light" on Paul Simon's forthcoming album So Beautiful or So What.

Discography

• Sonny Terry's Washboard Band (Folkways, 1955)
• Folk Songs of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee (Roulette, 1958)
• Blues with Big Bill Broonzy, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee (Folkways, 1959)
• "sing & play" (society,1966)
• Sonny & Brownie (A&M Records, 1973)
• Whoopin' (feat. Johnny Winter & 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

• List of blues musicians
• Blind musicians
• List of harmonicists
• Harmonica
• Jaw harp
• American Blues
• American folk music
• List of people on stamps of the United States

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Du Noyer, Paul (2003). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Music (1st ed.). Fulham, London: Flame Tree Publishing. p. 181. ISBN 1-904041-96-5. 
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Allmusic biography
3. ^ Terry, Sonny (as told to Kent Cooper). "The Harp Styles of Sonny Terry". Oak Publications, 1975, p. 7.
4. ^ Russell, Tony (1997). The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray. Dubai: Carlton Books Limited. pp. 62–63. ISBN 1-85868-255-X. 
5. ^ Thedeadrockstarsclub.com - accessed December 2009

Persondata
Name	Terry, Sonny
Alternative names
Short description	American Piedmont blues musician
Date of birth	24 October 1911
Place of birth	Greensboro, Georgia, United States
Date of death	11 March 1986
Place of death	Mineola, New York, United States