Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry

Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry (24 October 1911 - 11 March 1986) was a blind blues

musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal

whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.

Terry was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. 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. 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, 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.

Terry's 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).

Terry died from natural causes at Mineola, New York, in March 1986, the year he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Sonny Terry & Brownie Mc Ghee "Hootin' Blues"

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Sonny Terry & Brownie Mc Ghee "Hootin' Blues"