Blind Willie McTell

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Blind Willie McTell (born William Samuel McTier; circa 1903[1][2] – August 19, 1959) was an American Piedmont blues and ragtime singer, songwriter and guitarist. He played in a fluid, syncopated finger picking guitar style common among many East Coast, Piedmont blues players. Like his Atlanta contemporaries, he came to use twelve-string guitars exclusively. McTell was also adept at slide guitar, unusual among ragtime bluesmen. He sang in a smooth and often laid-back tenor which differed greatly from the harsher voices of many Delta bluesmen such as Charley Patton. He performed in various musical styles including blues, ragtime, religious music, and hokum and recorded more than 120 titles during fourteen recording sessions.

He was born William Samuel McTier[3] in the Happy Valley community outside Thomson, Georgia. In his recordings of "Lay Some Flowers on My Grave", "Lord, Send Me an Angel" and "Statesboro Blues", he pronounces his surname MacTell with the stress on the first syllable. He learned to play the guitar in his early teens from his mother and from relatives and neighbors in Statesboro where his family had moved. He was a popular performer on the streets of several Georgia cities, including Augusta and Atlanta where he made his first recordings, eight songs, for Victor Records in 1927 including "Statesboro Blues."[4] He never had a major hit record but he had a prolific recording career with different labels and under different names in the 1920s and '30s including "Blind Sammie" for Columbia, "Georgia Bill" for OKeh, Hot Shot Willie for Victor, and "Blind Willie" for Vocalion and Bluebird. McTell was active in the 1940s and '50s playing at house rent parties, on street corners, at fish fries, on the medicine and tent show circuit, playing on the streets of Atlanta, often with his longtime friend, Curley Weaver as well as hoboing through the South and East. He made his last recordings in 1956 at an impromptu session recorded by an Atlanta record store owner. He died three years later, having lived for years with diabetes and alcoholism. Despite his lack of commercial success, he was one of the few blues musicians of his generation who continued to actively play and record during the 1940s and '50s. He did not live to see the American folk music revival when many bluesmen, including himself, were rediscovered.[5] His popularity was greatest in the decades after his death.

Biography

Most sources give the date of his birth as 1898 but biographer Michael Gray[1] and researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc suggest 1903 as most likely on the basis of his entry in the 1910 census.[2] McTell was born blind in one eye and lost his remaining vision by late childhood. He attended schools for the blind in Georgia, New York and Michigan and showed proficiency in music from an early age, learning to read and write music in braille by the early 1920s.[6][5][7] This made him well-educated compared to most of his peers who sang the blues.[8] He first started playing the harmonica and accordion before turning to the six-string guitar in his early teens.[5][3] His family was rich in music; both of his parents and an uncle played the guitar and he and bluesman and gospel pioneer Thomas A. Dorsey were cousins.[3]

McTell's father left the family when Willie was young. After his mother died, in the 1920s, he left his hometown and became an itinerant songster. When traveling between Thomson and Atlanta, he would rely on the train.[9] Like Lead Belly, another songster who began his career on the streets, McTell favored the twelve-string guitar whose greater volume made it suitable for outdoor playing. McTell also performed on Decatur Street and at house parties in the Sweet Auburn district of Atlanta.[10][11] McTell played at traveling medicine shows, which is how executives from Victor discovered him. They first recorded him in 1927 in their Atlanta studio.[6] Because the contracts at the time were so strict about non-compete clauses, many blues musicians, including McTell would use pseudonyms when recording with different record labels.[6] He went by Blind Willie McTell for Victor and Decca, Blind Sammie for Columbia, Georgia Bill for Okeh, Hot Shot Willie for Victor, Red Hot Willie Glaze for Bluebird,[11] Blind Willie for Vocalion and Bluebird, Barrelhouse Sammie for Atlantic, and Pig & Whistle Red for Regal Records.[12] The name "Pig & Whistle" was a reference to a chain of barbecue restaurants in Atlanta; McTell often played for tips in the parking lot of a Pig'n Whistle restaurant on Ponce de Leon Avenue.[13][14] He also played behind a nearby building that later became Ray Lee's Blue Lantern Lounge.[7] McTell played a wide variety of music depending on the audience. Victor record label insisted on recording only blues from him given its popularity at the time.[15] In the years before World War II, McTell traveled and performed all around Georgia and the Carolinas but had a harder time getting recognition during the Great Depression when he made some of his best music due in part to reduced promotional budgets at record labels.[6]

McTell married Ruth Kate Williams, now better known as Kate McTell, in 1934.[5] She accompanied him on stage and on several recordings before becoming a nurse in 1939. For most of their marriage, from 1942 until his death, they lived apart, she in Fort Gordon, near Augusta, and he working around Atlanta.

In 1940, John Lomax, a Classics professor at the University of Texas at Austin and his wife, Ruby Terrill Lomax, interviewed and recorded McTell for the Archive of American Folk Song of the Library of Congress in a two-hour session held in their hotel room in Atlanta.[16] These recordings captured McTell's distinctive musical style which bridges the gap between the country blues of the early part of the 20th century and the more conventionally melodious, ragtime-influenced East Coast, Piedmont blues sound. The Lomaxes also elicited from him traditional songs (such as "The Boll Weevil" and "John Henry") and spirituals (such as "Amazing Grace"),[17] which were not part of his usual repertoire. In the interview, John Lomax is heard asking if McTell knows any "complaining" songs (an earlier term for protest songs), to which he replies somewhat uncomfortably and evasively that he does not. The Library of Congress paid McTell $10, the equivalent of $154.56 in 2011, for this two-hour session.[4] The material from this 1940 session was issued in 1960 as an LP and later as a CD under the somewhat misleading title The Complete Library of Congress Recordings notwithstanding the fact that it omitted some of Lomax's interactions showing kindness to him and entirely omitting the contributions of Ruby Terrill Lomax.Template:Refn McTell also recorded some duets with Curley Weaver in the late 1940’s.[18]

Ahmet Ertegun visited Atlanta in 1949 in search of blues artists for this new Atlantic Records label and after finding McTell playing on the street, arranged a recording session. Some of the songs were released on 78 rpm discs but sold poorly. The complete session was released in 1972 as Atlanta Twelve-String. McTell recorded for Regal Records in 1949 but these recordings also met with less commercial success than his previous works. He continued to perform around Atlanta but his career was cut short by ill health, mostly due to diabetes and alcoholism. In 1956, an Atlanta record store owner, Edward Rhodes, discovered McTell playing in the street for quarters and convinced him to play 13 songs on a tape recorder. Prestige Records/Bluesville Records posthumously released as his Last Session in 1961 during the folk music revival.[19][7][20] The release would spark an interest in his earlier work[10] as would the surging popularity of rock and roll which took lots of inspiration from blues artists like Willie McTell.[6] McTell had recorded around 120 songs throughout his life over 14 sessions.[21][8]

From 1957 to 1959, McTell was a preacher at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Atlanta, focusing more on his faith and gospel music as his health declined.[5][6]

Blind Willie McTell died of a stroke in Milledgeville, Georgia, in 1959. He was buried at Jones Grove Church, near Thomson, Georgia, his birthplace under a gravestone with the wrong name.[7] David Fulmer, who in 1992 was working on a documentary about McTell took the original gravestone and replaced it with a blue marble gravestone erected on his resting place.[22] Michael Gray found the removal and replacement controversial when he visited the site.[23] McTell was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame in 1981[24] and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1990.[25]

Influence

File:StatesboroBlues.jpg
Label of "Statesboro Blues", one of McTell's most notable works

McTell's influence extended over a wide variety of artists. His most famous song, "Statesboro Blues" was adapted by Taj Mahal on his debut album with Jesse Ed Davis on slide guitar, then covered and frequently performed by the Allman Brothers Band.[26][7][27] It also shows up on Canned Heat's "Goin' Up the Country" album. A short list of some of the artists who have performed the song includes David Bromberg, Dave Van Ronk, The Devil Makes Three, Chris Smither and Ralph McTell, who changed his name because he liked the song.[28] “Statesboro Blues" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2017.[29] Ry Cooder covered McTell's "Married Man's a Fool" on his 1973 album, Paradise and Lunch. Jack White, of the White Stripes, considers McTell an influence; the White Stripes album De Stijl (2000) is dedicated to him and features a cover of his song "Southern Can Is Mine". The White Stripes also covered McTell's "Lord, Send Me an Angel", releasing it as a single in 2000. In 2014, Jack White covered “Three Women Blues”.[10] In 2013, Jack White's Third Man Records teamed up with Document Records to issue The Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order of Charley Patton, Blind Willie McTell and the Mississippi Sheiks.[30]

Bob Dylan paid tribute to McTell on at least four occasions. In his 1965 song "Highway 61 Revisited", the second verse begins, "Georgia Sam, he had a bloody nose", an allusion to one of McTell's many recording names (Note: there is no evidence that he used this name on any recordings). Dylan's song "Blind Willie McTell" was recorded in 1983 and released in 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3. Dylan also recorded covers of McTell's "Broke Down Engine" and "Delia" on his 1993 album, World Gone Wrong;Template:Refn Dylan's song "Po' Boy", on the album Love and Theft (2001), contains the lyric "had to go to Florida dodging them Georgia laws", which comes from McTell's "Kill It Kid".[31] The Bath-based band Kill It Kid was named after the song of the same title.[32][33]

Willie Nelson, Steve Goodman and David Bromberg also covered songs by McTell.[10]

In 1986, Blind Willie's bar in the Virginia-Highlands neighborhood of Atlanta named after McTell opened. It has featured many blues musicians and bands.[34][35][36] In 2005 in nearby Little Five Points, a three-ton mosaic of Blind Willie was commissioned by the City of Atlanta. In 2021, it was moved from Findley Plaza to the corner of Euclid and Austin Avenues.[37][38]

Since 1992, the Blind Willie McTell Music Festival has been held annually in Thomson, Georgia.[39][40][9]

In 1996, author and former journalist David Fulmer released Blind Willie's Blues, a 53-minute documentary about McTell’s life, times, and music, with interviews with African-American history professor Daphne Duval Harrison, blues musician Taj Mahal, guitarist Stefan Grossman, Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, McTell's former brother-in-law Rev. A.J. Williams, and Edward Rhodes, who produced McTell's Last Sessions recording. In late 2023, the film was remastered by the Southeastern Folklife Collection at Valdosta State University and uploaded to YouTube.[41][42][10]

In 2010, Michael Gray donated the papers used to write his 2007 biography of Willie McTell to Georgia Southern University, which maintains the Willie McTell archives.[21]

In 2018, Statesboro, Georgia erected a statue of McTell and has a trail named after him.[43][44][45]

Sessionography

  • October 18, 1927: Atlanta, Georgia; for Victor Records, four songs[46]
  • October 17, 1928: Atlanta, Georgia; for Victor Records, four songs[46]
  • November 26-27 and 29th, 1929: Atlanta, Georgia; for Victor Records, 14 songs[46]
  • February 22, 1932: Atlanta, Georgia; for Victor Records, four songs[46]

Discography

Singles

Year A-side B-side Label Cat. # Moniker Note
1927 "Stole Rider Blues" "Mr. McTell Got the Blues" Victor 21124 Blind Willie McTell
"Writing Paper Blues" "Mamma, Tain't Long Fo' Day" 21474
1928 "Three Women Blues" "Statesboro Blues" V38001
"Dark Night Blues" "Loving Talking Blues" V38032
1929 "Atlanta Strut" "Kind Mama" Columbia 14657-D Blind Sammie
"Travelin' Blues" "Come on Around to My House Mama" 14484-D
"Drive Away Blues" "Love Changing Blues" Victor V38580 Blind Willie McTell
1930 "Talking to Myself" "Razor Ball" Columbia 14551-D Blind Sammie
1931 "Southern Can Is Mine" "Broke Down Engine Blues" 14632-D
"Low Rider's Blues" "Georgia Rag" OKeh 8924 Georgia Bill
"Stomp Down Rider" "Scarey Day Blues" 8936
1932 "Mama, Let Me Scoop for You" "Rollin' Mama Blues" Victor 23328 Hot Shot Willie with Ruby Glaze
"Lonesome Day Blues" "Searching the Desert for the Blues" 23353
1933 "Savannah Mama" "B and O Blues No. 2" Vocalion 02568 Blind Willie
"Broke Down Engine" "Death Cell Blues" 02577
"Warm It Up to Me" "Runnin' Me Crazy" 02595
"It's a Good Little Thing" "Southern Can Mama" 02622
"Lord Have Mercy, if You Please" "Don't You See How This World Made a Change" 02623 with "Partner" (Curley Weaver)
"My Baby's Gone" "Weary Hearted Blues" 02668
1935 "Bell Street Blues" "Ticket Agent Blues" Decca 7078 Blind Willie McTell with Kate McTell
"Dying Gambler" "God Don't Like It" 7093
"Ain't It Grand to Be a Christian" "We Got to Meet Death One Day" 7130
"Your Time to Worry" "Hillbilly Willie's Blues" 7117
"Cold Winter Day" "Lay Some Flowers on My Grave" 7810
1950 "Kill It Kid" "Broke-Down Engine Blues" Atlantic 891 Barrelhouse Sammy
"River Jordan" "How About You" Regal 3260 Blind Willie
"It's My Desire" "Hide Me in Thy Bosom" 3272
"Love Changing Blues" "Talkin' to You Mama" 3277 Willie Samuel McTell with Curley Weaver;
attributed to "Pig and Whistle Band"
As an accompanist
Year Artist A-side B-side Label Cat. # Note
1927 Alfoncy and Bethenea Harris "Teasing Brown" "This Is Not the Stove to Brown Your Bread" Victor V38594
1931 Ruth Willis "Experience Blues" "Painful Blues" Columbia 14642-D
"Rough Alley Blues" "Low Down Blues" OKeh 8921
"Talkin' to You Wimmin' About the Blues" "Merciful Blues" 8932
1935 Curley Weaver "Tricks Ain't Walking No More" "Early Morning Blues" Decca 7077
"Sometime Mama" "Two-Faced Woman" 7906 McTell plays only on B-side
"Oh Lawdy Mama" "Fried Pie Blues" 7664
1949 "My Baby's Gone" "Ticket Agent" Sittin' In With 547

Long-plays

Year Title Label Cat. # Note
1961 Last Session Bluesville BV 1040 recorded in 1956
1966 Blind Willie McTell: 1940
 Melodeon MLP 7323 subtitled The Legendary Library of Congress Session;
recorded in 1940

[47]

Selected compilations

  • Blind Willie McTell 1927–1933: The Early Years, Yazoo L-1005 (1968)
  • Blind Willie McTell 1949: Trying to Get Home, Biograph BLP-12008 (1969)
  • King of the Georgia Blues Singers (1929–1935), Roots RL-324 (1969)
  • Atlanta Twelve String, Atlantic SD-7224 (1972)
  • Death Cell Blues, Biograph BLP-C-14 (1973)
  • Blind Willie McTell: 1927–1935, Yazoo L-1037 (1974)
  • Blind Willie McTell: 1927–1949, The Remaining Titles, Wolf WSE 102 (1982)
  • Blues in the Dark, MCA 1368 (1983)
  • Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vol. 1, Document DOCD-5006 (1990)
  • Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vol. 2, Document DOCD-5007 (1990)
  • Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vol. 3, Document DOCD-5008 (1990)
    • These three albums were issued together as the box set Statesboro Blues, Document DOCD-5677 (1990)
  • Complete Library of Congress Recordings in Chronological Order, RST Blues Documents BDCD-6001 (1990)
  • Pig 'n Whistle Red, Biograph BCD 126 (1993)
  • The Definitive Blind Willie McTell, Legacy C2K-53234 (1994)
  • The Classic Years 1927–1940, JSP JSP7711 (2003)
  • King of the Georgia Blues, Snapper SBLUECD504X (2007)
  • Last Sessions, Prestige Bluesville lp 1040, (1961), Original Blues Classics OBC CD-517-2, (1992)

Selected compilations with other artists

  • Blind Willie McTell/Memphis Minnie: Love Changin' Blues, Biograph BLP-12035 (1971)
  • Atlanta Blues 1933, JEMF 106 (1979)
  • Blind Willie McTell and Curley Weaver: The Post-War Years, RST Blues Documents BDCD 6014 (1990)
  • Classic Blues Artwork from the 1920s, vol. 5, Blues Images – BIM-105 (2007)

Footnotes

Notes

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Citations

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  1. ↑ a b Bob Townsend. "A fresh take on Blind Willie - Author uncovers details of family tree. Book strongest in description of musician's talent..” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA), October 6, 2009: D1.
  2. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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  4. ↑ a b Green, Justin. Musical Legends. Template:ISBN.
  5. ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ a b c d e f "Blind Willie McTell." Contemporary Black Biography, vol. 89, Gale, 2011. Gale In Context: Biography. Accessed 25 Feb. 2026.
  7. ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ a b Denis, Matthew. "Honoring roots rock icons at The Shedd." The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), sec. Entertainmentlife, 4 Feb. 2019.
  9. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  10. ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  11. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  13. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  15. ↑ Gray p. 209
  16. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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  18. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  20. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  21. ↑ a b MOBLEY, CHUCK. "BLIND WILLIE MCTELL'S STORY COMES HOME\ AUTHOR MICHAEL GRAY DONATES PAPERS USED TO PUT TOGETHER BLUES SINGER'S BIOGRAPHY TO GEORGIA SOUTHERN LIBRARY." Savannah Morning News (GA), HOME ed., sec. ACCENT, 23 July 2010, p. 1D.
  22. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  23. ↑ Gray p. 47, 58-59
  24. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  25. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  26. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  27. ↑ Burke, Tony. "Blind Willie McTell: Statesboro Blues--The Early Years 1927-1935." Record Collector, no. 536, Oct. 2022, p. 110. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A721992507/ITOF?u=sfpl_main&sid=ebsco&xid=d4bd5e62. Accessed 25 Feb. 2026.
  28. ↑ Hockenhull, Chris (1997). Streets of London: The Official Biography of Ralph McTell. Northdown. p. 40. Template:ISBN.
  29. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  30. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  31. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  32. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  33. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  34. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  35. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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  37. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  38. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  39. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  40. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  41. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  42. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". at IMDb
  43. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  44. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  45. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  46. ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  47. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

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Works cited

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General references

External links

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