Sonny Terry – Blues Harp – Born October 24, 1911 Greensboro, Georgia
Among the many instruments that I love is the harmonica or more specifically the blues harp, and there are few who play that instrument better than Sonny Terry from Blues Harp…..
The joyous whoop that Sonny Terry naturally emitted between raucous harp blasts was as distinctive a signature sound as can possibly be imagined. Only a handful of blues harmonicists wielded as much of a lasting influence on the genre as did the sightless Terry (Buster Brown, for one, copied the whoop and all), who recorded some fine urban blues as a bandleader in addition to serving as guitarist Brownie McGhee‘s longtime duet partner.(From Blues Harp)
Today (October 24th) we can remember that joyous whoop and celebrate the 104th birthday of acoustic blues musicians Sonny Terry. Sonny was born in Greensboro, North Carolina and started his blues career playing in the trio of Blind Boy Fuller. He played with Fuller until Fuller’s death in 1941. After Fuller died Terry began playing with Brownie McGhee and as they say the rest is folk history!!
Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry (24 October 1911 – 11 March 1986[2]) was a blind American Piedmont blues musician.[1] 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 died from natural causes at Mineola, New York, in March 1986, the year he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame (Wikipedia)
IThe Best of Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry is in my music library and the memory lingers of driving down the Blue Ridge Parkway singing along to songs from Brownie and Terry like “Walk On”, “Down by the Riverside”, “Blues from the Lowland” and “Blowin’ The Fuses” ! Boy, what a great blues harp player!
So Happy Birthday Sonny- Hope you and Brownie have a nice day!!
Originally posted in Jn 2014 Updated and Revised July 2026
Discovering Charlie Musselwhite
It’s amazing to me that I’ve never been a big Charlie Musselwhite fan. I love blues harp and he is certainly one of the best players of the harp around, so why?? It’s in explicable isn’t it, is it his voice or is it that there’s too much, music and too little time and somehow poor Charlie gets lost in the shuffle\!
Well that may have to change because last night and today I listened to one of the best blues albums of 2013 Juke Joint Chapel from Charlie and I must say at 69 years young he appears to be at the top of his game!!
Juke Joint Chapel is an amazing album, Here are some of the key tracks each are great. The descriptions are from Charlie’s Website:
The live and kicking Juke Joint Chapel showcases five originals and seven choice covers with a stone groove band of Matt Stubbs (guitar), Mike Phillips (bass) and June Core (drum
The classic Eddie Taylor shuffle “Bad Boy” chugs with grace and attitude as Musselwhite slyly quotes
“C.C. Rider” in his opening harp solo, his tone as thick as sweet molasses. His is one of the most recognizable voices in the blues, a true “instrument” he employs effortlessly to great expressiveness.
“Roll Your Moneymaker” cruises smoothly as a ’55 Lincoln Continental, the luxury ride only interrupted by dynamic stop-time. Written by crap-shooting Shaky Jake Harris, whom Musselwhite says played harmonica as “another hustle” and modestly admits to “showing him a couple of licks.”
Stubbs stands out and is a monster guitarist graciously allotted extensive solo space throughout from a leader who has enjoyed the services of many greats, but will never feel threatened by another instrumentalist.
The toe tapping two-beat of Tony Joe White’s “As the Crow Flies” is driven hard by the propulsive and endlessly inventive Stubbs along with Musselwhite, who has observed, “In country music, the singer might say ‘my baby left me and I’m gonna jump off a bridge.’ But in blues, they say ‘my baby left me, and I’m gonna get a new baby’.
” “Gone Too Long,” from fellow harmonicist Billy Boy Arnold contains one of his patented syncopated figures and an unstoppable rhythm from the Musselwhite band demanding you can’t sit down….. Read More
And of Course I asked Who is that on Guitar!
As I listened to the album aside from the great harp from Charlie, I kept thinking over and over, who is that on guitar? Because the playing was great as was the chemistry between the guitarist and Charlie.. and now I know the answer Matt Stubbs! It’s also good to read that I’m not the only one who was impressed by Mr Stubbs!!
Charlie’s Awards and Honors
Here’s some of the recent awards that Charlie has garnered…… impressive is an understatement!!
2011 GRAMMY Nominee for Best Traditional Blues Album
The Well – Alligator Records
2012 Blues Music Award Winner for Traditional Blues Male Artist of the Year and for Best Instrumentalist Harmonica
2011 Blues Music Award Winner for Best Instrumentalist – Harmonica AND Traditional Blues Male Artist of the Year! Also nominated for Album of the Year for The Well, Traditional Blues Album of the Year for The Well and Song of the Year for “Sad and Beautiful World”
Featured on Cyndi Lauper’s, Memphis Blues, also a 2011 GRAMMY nominee for Best Traditional Blues Album
2010 Blues Hall of Fame Inductee
2011 Living Blues Award. Readers’ Poll winner for Most Outstanding Musician award (Harmonica), for the fifth year in a row, his 9th overall Living Blues Award for Outstanding Musician.
2011 saw Charlie recognized in the DownBeat Magazine Critics Poll in both the Blues Artist category and Blues Album
2011 DownBeat Magazine Readers Poll – ranked among the Best Blues Artists and Best Blues Albums for The Well
Featured on Tom Waits latest album, Bad As Me, which entered the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart at #6 in November 2011. Charlie appears on five tracks, including the title track.
So after listening this afternoon, I went back to the beginning of Charlie’s career and listened briefly to his first album Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite’s Southside Bandand again I ask how come I didn’t listen?? Boy once again I have a lot of catching up to do!!
Here’s Charlie and the band performing: “As the Crow Flies” at Lagunitas Brewery in Petaluma, for the 2nd annual Coahoma-to-Sonoma Blues Festival, 2013.
So sometimes artist fall into that category of you know their name, you know they’re great and yet you’ve never listened to their music. An artist like that for me is the great James Cotton. I’ve known the name since the 60’s then the James Cotton Blues Band, but never really sought out his music only hearing it now and then on the radio’
So when I saw that the 75 year old Cotton had released a new album Giant a few weeks ago I said in my best Toyota Commercial Voice “Now is the Time!” and downloaded the album on to the player and after listening I had one of those “What was I thinking” moments! “Superharp” at 75 has made a great blues album! You can read the press release from Alligator News here
About James Cotton-Giant
Of the 12 tracks on Giant four are new Cotton originals and co-writes. The other tracks include songs made famous by Muddy Waters (with whom Cotton playeds for several years), B.B. King, Ivory Joe Hunter and others. Cotton has always had great bands throughout his career. On Giant his band mates are Slam Allen and Tom Holland who share guitar and vocal duties, Noel Neal on bass (except for one song where Ronnie James Weber plays bass) Kenny Neal, Jr is the drummer.
Throughout the album from the opening track “Buried Alive in the Blues” to the closing track “Blues for Koko” Cotton’s harp work is outstanding. On several of the tracks like, “How Blue Can You Get?” the guitar work also stands out!
So if you like blues harmonica, like I do, don’t put off listening to James Cotton, like I did. Check out Giant, well, because James Cotton is and at 75 he’s still blowing strong!
Thinking about not listening to James Cotton makes me think about the author and book I’m reading now Greg Iles’ True Evil. Iles is one of those authors that when I pick up one of his books and read it I end up saying “wow!” and thinking why don’t I read this author’s new books as soon as they come out!!
Anyway here’s “How Blue Can You Get?” featuring Slam Allen’s guitar work!
