Walter Brown ‘Brownie’ McGhee was born November 15, 1915 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Because family records of his birth were lost, he believed for years that he had been born in 1914. It was only when he went to apply for a passport that he found out otherwise. Brownie came by his music naturally. His father, George ‘Duff’ McGhee, played local corn shucking parties with Brownie’s uncle John Evans. Around the house the family listened to recordings by the likes of Bessie Smith and Lonnie Johnson. His brother Granville was born in 1918. Shortly thereafter Brownie contracted polio which shortened his right leg and made it difficult to walk without the aid of a crutch or cane. As a youngster, Granville acquired the nickname ‘Stick’ because he used a stick to guide the small wagon Brownie often used to get around. Perhaps because of his inability to interact fully with neighborhood children, Brownie learned to play guitar and piano.
Brownie spent his school years in Kingsport, Tennessee where the family had moved without his mother. Brownie began playing guitar, piano, and pump organ for the Solomon Temple Baptist Church. The frequency of his playing forced him to learn to use picks. He began using a thumb pick and finger picks for all of his guitar playing. When he was in the eighth grade he moved to Maryville, Tennessee. He and Stick began entertaining white people at the Smoky Mountain Hotel and at drinking parties on riverboats. Brownie played picnics, carnivals, medicine shows, and worked for a time in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels. He began playing all over the Piedmont area, thumbing rides up and down the highway, living the life of an itinerant Bluesman. He often slept in graveyards, feeling that others superstitions kept him safe. He moved to Knoxville, Tennessee where he could be found in ‘Brownie’s Alley,’ which became a hot spot for area musicians looking for work. In 1937, he got rid of his canes and crutches following an operation on his leg sponsored by the March of Dimes.
In 1938, Brownie went to New York to be in John Hammond’s Carnegie Hall series. There he befriended such people as Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, and Big Bill Broonzy. That same year Blind Boy Fuller’s washboard player, George ‘Red’ Washington, introduced Brownie and his harp player to J. B. Long. Long was a Durham, North Carolina department store owner who had been managing the career of Blind Boy Fuller and had close ties with the Okeh record company. Because Fuller’s failing health prevented him from making a recording session, Long persuaded Okeh to give Brownie an audition. Brownie’s first session was on August 6, 1940. The recordings went on for two days and yielded 12 sides. The first song was ‘Picking my Tomatoes.’ On these sessions Brownie played an inexpensive Gibson guitar sold under the Stewart brand. As Blind Boy Fuller’s life and career drew to a close, Okeh made Brownie’s recordings ‘B’ sides to Fuller’s records. Following Fuller’s death Long began promoting Brownie as Blind Boy Fuller #2. Though this was not an uncommon practice at the time, McGhee and his family resented it. It was at this juncture that Brownie began his longtime partnership with Fuller’s harmonica player, Sonny Terry. Brownie learned the subtleties of the publishing business from Buddy Moss at a swap session later in Chicago. With the proceeds from his first recordings he bought the top of the line Gibson J-200.
As his recordings became popular in the 40’s Brownie became afraid that his audience might grow tired of him. He began to record under various pseudonyms for various labels. Around 1947, he cut ‘My Fault’ for the Savoy Company. The song was a hit and stayed on top of the Billboard charts for 12 weeks. In 1950, he married his wife, Ruth, with whom he had two daughters. To supplement his income as a recording artist he appeared in Langston Hughes’ ‘Simply Heaven,’ and Elia Kazan’s ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.’
The Folk boom of the 1960’s exposed Brownie and Sonny to a brand new crowd of adoring young white people. They played college concerts and folk festivals and made a number of recordings up into the 70’s. Brownie parted company with Sonny Terry in 1982. His last album was an effort with Robben Ford titled, The Facts of Life.
In 1995, Brownie was featured as an actor and singer in the movie ‘Angel Heart,’ starring Robert De Niro and Mickey Rorke.
Walter Brown ‘Brownie’ McGhee died in retirement in Oakland, California February 16, 1996.
— (Blues Foundation press release, 1997.)