The Blues Store 3: Classic Blues and Legendary Bluesmen

History Unlimited Blues: From Blind Boy Fuller to Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee.

On This Page: Blind Boy Fuller, Robert Nighthawk, Howlin’ Wolf, Robert Johnson, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee. And see Blues Roots on our Jazz Pages

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Origins of The Blues continued

We strongly suggest that you review the information provided on Amazon carefully before selecting your choices. Artists develop and draw upon their own repertoires of standard numbers which appear, in various interpretations, on a succession of albums. It is worth studying the available information to avoid unwanted duplication (although the variations are often interesting in their own right). On the other hand, compilation albums and sets can be of varying degrees of comprehensiveness, a factor that is often reflected in a wide range of prices. Where appropriate, we have tried to give choices that cater to every budget.

Artists on our Blues Legends pages are arranged in order of their dates of birth.

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Blind Boy Fuller

1908-1941. Born Fulton Allen in Wadesboro, North Carolina.

Durham, North Carolina, in the 1930s was at the centre of the emerging Piedmont Blues scene and Blind Boy fuller was central to Piedmont Blues. One of twelve surviving children of a sixteen strong farming family, Fuller absorbed the musical traditions of the rural poor through church and socials and from older musicians who harked back to the field hollers of the plantations. By the time he reached Durham in the late 1920s he had spent time playing on the streets of Rockingham in Richmond County; and he continued as a street entertainer in Durham at the same time as the Reverend Gary Davis.

Fuller and Davis were spotted by local talent scout JB Long. In 1935 the two travelled with Long and washboard/guitar man Bull City Red to New York for their first recording sessions. JB Long was also instrumental in bringing together Fuller and Sonny Terry, and from 1937 onwards Terry accompanied Fuller on his recordings. Fuller’s steel-bodied National resonator, Terry’s wailing harp and the unsentimental integrity of the lyrics were a compelling combination that spread their popularity through the South and along the East Coast.

Blind Boy Fuller’s protégé Brownie McGhee also came under JB Long’s management and, on Long’s insistence, took on the older man’s mantle after Fuller’s death (for a time appearing as Blind Boy Fuller II). This was the start of the long-lasting partnership of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Blind Boy Fuller passed away at his home in Durham in 1941.

Blind Boy Fuller Vol 1 1935-1936 / Blind Boy Fuller

Format: 1 Disc. 24 Tracks.

Blind Boy Fuller Vol 2 1937 / Blind Boy Fuller

Format: 1 Disc. 24 Tracks.

Blind Boy Fuller Vol 3 1937 / Blind Boy Fuller

Format: 1 Disc. 22 Tracks.

Blind Boy Fuller Vol 4 1937-1938 / Blind Boy Fuller

Format: 1 Disc. 22 Tracks.

Blind Boy Fuller Vol 5 1938-1940 / Blind Boy Fuller

Format: 1 Disc. 23 Tracks.

Blind Boy Fuller Vol 6 1940 / Blind Boy Fuller

Format: 1 Disc. 14 Tracks.

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Robert Nighthawk

1909-1967. Born Robert Lee McCollum in Helena, Arkansas.

Robert Lee McCollum’s wandering lifestyle allowed only a limited number of recording sessions – no more than a dozen or so – and he is now somewhat neglected and unappreciated. But in his heyday he was at the heart of Delta and Chicago blues and was the familiar of some of the great artists of his time. McCollum was one of three children of a musical farming family who had learnt harmonica by the age of fourteen and took to the road not long afterwards. By around 1930 Robert Lee was working on a farm with Stackhouse Houston, who taught him to play guitar and introduced him to the songs of Tommy Johnson. The two teamed up with McCollum’s brother Percy and played the fish fry and party circuit around Crystal Springs.

Robert Lee’s travels brought him to Friars Point, across the river from Helena, and into contact with Charley Patton, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters – he played at Waters’ first wedding - all of whom grew up in the region. Moving on to Memphis, he met Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Boy Williamson, and played an extended engagement with John Lee Hooker.

In the mid-1930s McCollum left the Deep South for St Louis after a shooting incident. There he played with Sonny Boy Williamson, Peetie Wheatstraw, Walter Davis and Sleepy John Estes, bluesmen who brought him to Chicago to record in 1937. The St Louis artists travelled back and forth to Chicago for Bluebird recording sessions between 1937 and 1940, with McCollum recording under a number of pseudonyms. In Chicago he began refining his slide guitar style after hearing the music of Tampa Red. Back in Helena, in 1942 McCollum adopted the name Robert Nighthawk to identify himself with one of his most popular tracks, Prowling Night-Hawk. The 1940s saw Nighthawk alternating between Helena and Chicago, broadcasting on KFFA for Bright Star Flour and giving live performances in Arkansas; and recording in Illinois. His most memorable tracks were laid down for Aristocrat between 1948 and 1950, following an introduction by Muddy Waters. Nighthawk’s band at times included Lee Hooker and a young Ike Turner. The pattern of touring, performances and occasional recording sessions in Chicago had been set and was continue to the end. His popularity as a broadcaster and live performer was not, however matched by his record sales. Even the 1960s revival failed to bring him the same recognition as his peers and proteges, although he recorded for Decca, Chess and Testament.

In Nighthawk’s early KFFA days Sonny Boy Williamson II had broadcast (on King Biscuit Time) for a rival flour company. Sonny Boy returned to King Biscuit Time for a short time until his death in 1965. Robert Nighthawk took over Sonny Boy's King Biscuit Time show, and recorded his last sessions in Houston Stackhouse’s band in 1967. He died in the same year and was buried in an unmarked grave in Helena.

Bricks in My Pillow / Robert Nighthawk

Format: 1 Disc. 5 Tracks.

Ramblin' Bob / Robert Nighthawk

Format: 1 Disc. 25 Tracks.

Prowling With the Nighthawk / Robert Nighthawk

Format: 1 Disc. 26 Tracks.

Rare Chicago Blues Recordings [Live] / Robert Nighthawk

Format: 1 Disc. 10 Tracks.

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Howlin’ Wolf

1910-1976. Born Chester Arthur Burnett in White Station, Mississippi.

Chester Burnett’s parents separated when he was still a boy. After a bleak childhood with his mother and a Baptist great-uncle in the Mississippi hill country, Chester ran way to rejoin his father on the Young and Morrow Plantation in the Delta. Charlie Patton was living on the nearby Dockery Plantation, and Chester persuaded him to give him lessons when he was given his first guitar, in 1928. Later he took harmonica lessons from Sonny Boy Williamson. Time was spent away from the farm travelling the Delta with Sonny Boy, Patton, Robert Johnson, Willie Brown and Son House. A big man, 6’3” tall with size 16 feet, Chester had a voice to match, powerful, raw and loud.

After army service during WWII (and a nervous breakdown in 1943) Howlin’ Wolf returned to itinerant playing mixed with occasional work on his father’s farm. Moving to Arkansas in 1948, he put together a band that included Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy, Willie Johnson and Pat Hare, and harmonica players Junior Parker and James Cotton. In 1951 Wolf was discovered by Sam Phillips, who leased his first two recordings, How Many More Years and Moanin’ at Midnight, to Chess Records. After the success of these two songs, Phillips cut more tracks that were leased either to Chess or RPM. Chess won the fight to sign Wolf and the musician moved to Chicago, where he lived for the rest of a life that was made the more interesting by rivalry with that other Chicago blues giant, Muddy Waters.

By the 1960s, after playing the small club circuit for some years, Wolf’s influence began to be felt by the emerging blues-rock movement. He toured the UK and Europe in 1964 and appeared on US TV with the Rolling Stones in 1965. In 1970 a slightly sceptical Wolf, together with his lead guitar man Hubert Sumlin, joined Eric Clapton, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Jeffrey Carp and others in a London studio to record The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions. By this time Wolf was not a well man, having suffered heart attacks and kidney failure – he received dialysis treatment for the rest of his life. His last studio album, in 1973, was Back Door Wolf and his last live performance was in November 1975 at the Chicago Ampitheatre. He needed attention from paramedics when he left the stage and within two months was dead of heart failure during an operation.

Sam Phillips, Wolf’s first producer, went on to work with Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash but always maintained that Howlin’ Wolf was his greatest discovery and that the loss to Chess was his biggest disappointment.

A Proper Introduction to Howlin' Wolf: Memphis Days / Howlin’ Wolf

Format: 1 Disc. 25 Tracks.

The Collection / Howlin’ Wolf

Format: 1 Disc. 18 Tracks.

His Best Vol 1 / Howlin’ Wolf

Format: 1 Disc. 20 Tracks.

His Best Vol 2 / Howlin’ Wolf

Format: 1 Disc. 20 Tracks.

The Chess Box / Howlin’ Wolf

Format: 3 Disc Box Set. 75 Tracks.

Real Folk Blues Vols 1 & 2 / Howlin’ Wolf

Format: 1 Disc. 24 Tracks.

The Back Door Wolf / Howlin’ Wolf

Format: 1 Disc. 11 Tracks.

The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions: Deluxe Edition / Howlin’ Wolf

Format: 2 Disc Set. 28(?) Tracks.

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Robert Johnson

1911-1938. Born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi.

Robert Johnson shares with his namesake Tommy Johnson (no relation) the reputation of having sold his soul to the devil at a country crossroads in exchange for the guitar-playing skills that made him a blues legend. All four of Johnson’s grandparents were born into slavery. His father had been forced out of Mississippi to Memphis by a personal vendetta before Robert was born. In 1918 Johnson joined his mother and a new stepfather on the Abbay and Leatherman Plantation, Robinsonville, Mississippi, a few miles south of Memphis. It was here, in his early teens, that he first began playing music, initially the jew’s harp and then harmonica. In the late 1920s he took up the guitar, with help and advice from Willie Brown and Charlie Patton. Son House had moved to Robinsonville in 1930, and Johnson haunted the local juke joints to hear House’s raw, intense, performances. The local music scene soon left Johnson dissatisfied with his life as a sharecropper.

Johnson left home to search for his real father in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, in the midst of the Great Depression. Works Progress Administration projects were thick on the ground and Johnson earned a good living playing at the juke joints of the lumber camps and road gangs under the influence of bluesman Ike Zinnerman. Johnson emerged as a dapper professional musician with itchy feet and eventually moved on to the Delta, playing up and down the river. In his later years he settled in Helena, Arkansas, whose nightspots were a magnet for the blues greats of the time.

Johnson’s reputation soared after his first recording session for Vocalion Records, which produced the number for which he is best known – Terraplane Blues. The Vocalion sessions led to lucrative radio and personal appearances, including a four month tour that took in St. Louis and Chicago, Detroit and Ontario. In 1938 John Hammond tried to recruit Johnson for his first Spirituals and Swing concert, but Johnson was dead before he could be contacted. Eleven records were issued during Johnson’s lifetime and one posthumously. A further 29 compositions survive.

Robert Johnson had always been a ladies man and made a habit of selecting (usually older) women for temporary liaisons. His downfall came near the Delta town of Greenwood , where he stayed for a couple of weeks and struck up a friendship with the wife of the houseman of the Three Forks. According to Sonny Boy Williamson, who had been playing with Johnson, Robert had been passed a bottle of whiskey. Ignoring Sonny Boy’s warning never to drink out of an open bottle, Johnson was taken ill in the middle of a number, apparently from strychnine poisoning. Weakened by the incident, he succumbed to pneumonia two weeks later, on August 16, 1938. For many years his burial place was a mystery, adding to the legend that had begun at the crossroads. Recent research has established that he was buried at the Little Zion Church, north of Greenwood, Mississippi. (The film Crossroads (not available in Region 2 format) was based on a fictional search for is grave and featured music by Ry Cooder.)

The Complete Recordings / Robert Johnson

Format: 2 Disc Box Set. 41 Tracks.

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Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee

Sonny Terry: 1911-1986. Born Saunders Terrell in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Brownie McGhee: 1915-1996. Born Walter McGhee in Knoxville, Texas.

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee formed one of the best loved blues partnerships of the twentieth century. Sonny Terry learnt the basics of harmonica from his father and, with his sight deteriorating after a couple of accidents, was forced to earn a living from his music. A meeting with Piedmont Blues guitarist Blind Boy Fuller led to an introduction to Fuller’s manager JB Long, and Terry and Fuller began playing and recording together in Durham. The pair went on to record in New York in 1937, and Sonny Terry appeared on every Blind Boy Fuller recording until Fuller died in 1941. At the time of the New York sessions John Hammond was planning his 1938 Spirituals and Swing concert. He travelled to Durham to invite Fuller, but finding him in jail signed up Terry instead. After Fuller’s death, Terry was invited by Paul Robeson to appear at a high school concert in Washington DC, and at JB Long’s suggestion was accompanied by Brownie McGhee.

The two had already met in North Carolina, where McGhee had also met and befriended Blind Boy Fuller, his greatest influence. McGhee’s mastery of Blind Boy’s style was so impressive that JB Long had him take the name Blind Boy Fuller II for a time after Fuller’s death. Brownie McGhee had learnt the guitar in his youth and had travelled with tent shows after dropping out of school. After a spell with the Golden Voices Gospel Choir he went back on the road until he found his way to Durham and his hero Blind Boy Fuller.

After the Washington concert, Terry and McGhee were booked for a show in New York. There followed a series of concerts with Woodie Guthrie and the pair moved permanently to New York, where they were taken up by such white folk revivalists as Pete Seeger and Cisco Houston. Through the 1940s and into the 1950s record sales were high and the two appeared on Broadway, television and in films. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee were among the first blues musicians to tour Europe in the early 1950s and the duo received a boost from the folk-blues movement of the 1960’s. They performed regularly on the international festival and concert circuit until they drifted apart in the 1970s. Both continued to perform and record until their deaths. Brownie McGhee outlived his old partner by ten years and delivered a memorable cameo as bluesman Toots Sweet in Alan Parker’s Angel Heart (1987 qv) available from our Film Store