The bluesmen Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee forged a musical partnership which lasted for 35 years and projected the men to worldwide fame during the 1950s and '60s. Terry, born in North Carolina, was blind having lost the sight in each eye in two separate childhood accidents. He developed his distinctive style of harmonica playing with the famous blues guitarist Blind Boy Fuller busking on street corners. McGhee from Knoxville, Tennessee contracted polio as a child and grew into one of the most renowned blues guitarists of his generation.
In 1940 both Terry and McGhee found themselves working for the Chicago-based Okeh label and the two men became acquainted. After the death of Blind Boy Fuller in 1941 Terry began looking for a new musical partner and, encouraged by Fuller's manager, they formed a new duo. Their act won worldwide acclaim and the two men began to develop solo musical and acting careers alongside their work as a duo. Despite their affable stage personas Terry and McGhee had grown to dislike each other over the years and barely spoke off stage; eventually this led to an acrimonious split in the late 1970s. Terry died in 1986 at the age of 74 and McGhee died in 1996 at the age of 80. Both men left behind a fine recording legacy of some the best Piedmont blues ever committed to vinyl.
