clarkspicks.com

Saunders Terrell, AKA Sonny Terry, was another blues musician pushed into the business by blindness. He lost his sight at the age of 16 and could no longer work on his father’s farm. Brownie McGee suffered from the aftereffects of polio and was also unable to do manual labor. The two met in North Carolina, in 1939, introduced by guitarist Blind Boy Fuller, and by 1942 the two were performing together in New York. Terry and McGee did folk coffeehouse and festival gigs as an acoustic duo while, in the 1940s, also fronting a jump blues band with saxophone and drums. Their collaboration lasted into the 1980s.

Here is a 1966 performance which features Sonny Terry, singing and playing harmonica. Brownie McGee accompanies him on guitar, mostly off camera.

Ian Tyson and Sylvia Fricker, a Canadian folksinging duo, come down from Canada in 1962 and, in New York, became protégés of Albert Gossman, business manager to the stars of the great American folk scare. Grossman got them a record deal with Vanguard and a spot at the Newport Folk Festival and the rest is history. They were married in 1964 and divorced in 1974.

Both Ian and Sylvia continue to perform (separately.) Ian, now 69 years old, looks a bit like Al Gore in a cowboy hat but still gives a very good show. I havn’t had the priveledge of seing Sylvia perform live.

In this clip, from a Hootenanny episode in 1963, they sing their version of Ma Rainy’s “C C Rider”, from their first, self titled album.

I just ran across this 1965 Beatles performance in France. Paul introduces the song in halting French and you can actually hear the song despite the loud, enthusiastic crowd.