Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee (nee Saunders Terrell and Walter Brown McGhee, respectively) share the distinction of having had one of the longest (nearly 35 years)--as well as one of the most fruitful--partnerships in blues history.

Born in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1911, Terry was taught to play harmonica by his father. By the age of eighteen, he had lost sight in both eyes due to two separate accidents. In the '30s, he performed around the state and cut some sides with popular blues guitarist Blind Boy Fuller. McGhee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1915, and sang and learned the guitar as a youth. Early on, he was as interested in gospel music as he was in the blues, and, after dropping out of school, he traveled with tent shows prior to joining the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet in 1934. Terry and McGhee first met in 1939, but the duo did not become partners until after Fuller's sudden death in 1941. By 1942, Terry and McGhee had moved to New York City, where their "Piedmont" style of blues--which leaned heavily upon acoustic, country blues strains--blended nicely with the burgeoning folk and blues scene there which was populated by Leadbelly, Josh White, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger among others. Over the years, the prolific pair cut dozens of albums together, and nearly as many apart, as they frequently interspersed recordings with various other artists. McGhee, in fact, even went on to cut spirituals and gospel sides, while Terry branched off onto projects such as the soundtrack of Steven Spielberg's film The Color Purple. Though sometimes chastised by blues purists who feel Terry & McGhee's music lacked the burning intensity of authentic blues in an effort to promote easier consumption by the white audience, few would deny that the duo's playing was top-rate, with Terry's joyous "whoopin'" style of harp-playing nicely complementing McGhee's sweet picking and well-crafted compositions.

Whatever the intention, their digestible brand of blues was a perfect fit for the commercial folk-blues boom of the early '60s, propelling them to headlining status at major folk and blues festivals and other venues around the world in addition to placing them among the top selling of all blues artists up until their partnership dissolved due to personal squabbling in 1975. Terry died in 1986, the same year he was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame. McGhee, also a Hall of Fame inductee, died in 1996.

This Biography was written by Scott Taylor