Displaying an extraordinary range on the twelve-string guitar, this Atlanta-based musician recorded more than 120 titles during fourteen recording sessions. His voice was soft and expressive, and his musical tastes were influenced by southern blues, ragtime, gospel, hillbilly, and popular music. At a time when most blues musicians were poorly educated and rarely traveled, McTell was an exception. He could read and write music in Braille. He traveled often from Atlanta to New York City, frequently alone. As a person faced with a physical disability and social inequities, he expressed in his music a strong confidence in dealing with the everyday world.
McTell was born in Thomson on May 5, 1898. Few facts are known about his early life. Even his name is uncertain: his family name was either McTear or McTier, and his first name may have been Willie, Samuel, or Eddie. His tombstone reads “Eddie McTier.” He was blind either from birth or from early childhood, and he attended schools for the blind in Georgia, New York, and Michigan. While in his early teens, McTell learned to play the guitar from his mother, relatives, and neighbors in Statesboro, where his family had moved. In his teenage years, after his mother’s death, he left home and toured in carnivals and medicine shows. In the 1920s and 1930s McTell traveled a circuit between Atlanta, Augusta, Savannah, and Macon. This region encompasses two major blues styles: Eastern Seaboard/Piedmont, with lighter, bouncier rhythms and a ragtime influence; and Deep South, with its greater emphasis on intense rhythms and short, repeated music phrases.
McTell also journeyed from Georgia to New York City. Along the way he entertained wherever he could find an audience: passenger train cars, hotel lobbies, college fraternity parties, school assemblies, proms, vaudeville theaters, and churches. As he followed the tobacco market from Georgia into North Carolina, he played for farmers, buyers, and merchants at warehouses, auctions, livery stables, and hotels.
A Replica Of Willie Mctell's Tonk Brothers 12 String.
By the mid-1920s McTell was already an accomplished musician in Atlanta, playing at house parties and fish fries. He had also traded in the standard six-string acoustic guitar for a twelve-string guitar, which was popular among Atlanta musicians because of the extra volume it provided for playing on city streets. By 1926 record companies had begun to take an interest in recording folk blues artists, mostly men playing solo with guitars—Blind Lemon Jefferson from Texas, Charley Patton and Tommy Johnson from Mississippi, and Peg Leg Howell from Georgia. Beginning with his first recording in 1927 for Victor Records and his 1928 recording session for Columbia, McTell produced such blues classics as “Statesboro Blues” (later made famous by the Allman Brothers Band and Taj Mahal), “Mama 'Tain’t Long 'for’ Day, ” and “Georgia Rag.” In 1929 he recorded “Broke Down Engine Blues.”
Like other musicians at the time, he recorded on different labels under various nicknames to skirt contractual agreements. Thus he was Blind Willie for Vocalion, Georgia Bill for OKeh, Red Hot Willie Glaze for Bluebird, Blind Sammie for Columbia, Barrel House Sammy for Atlantic, and Pig 'n’ Whistle Red for Regal Records. The latter name came from a popular drive-in barbecue restaurant in Atlanta where he played for tips.
In 1940 folk-song collector John Lomax recorded the versatile musician for the Archive of Folk Culture of the Library of Congress. These sessions, which have been issued in full, feature interviews as well as a variety of music.
Blind Willie Mctell Sheet Music
McTell was the only bluesman to remain active in Atlanta until well after World War II (1941-45). With his longtime associate Curley Weaver, he played for tips on Atlanta’s Decatur Street, a popular hangout for local blues musicians. His last recording was made in 1956 for an Atlanta record-store owner and released on the Prestige/Bluesville label. Afterward he played exclusively religious music. From 1957 to his death he was active as a preacher at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Atlanta. He died from a cerebral hemorrhage on August 19, 1959, at the Milledgeville State Hospital (later Central State Hospital).
In 1981 Blind Willie McTell was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall of Fame. Two years later, folksinger Bob Dylan paid homage to McTell in his song “Blind Willie McTell”: “And I know no one can sing the blues / Like Blind Willie McTell.” In 1990 McTell was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Each year, the city of Thomson hosts the Blind Willie McTell Blues Festival in honor of their hometown legend.
“Blind Willie” McTell was one of the great blues musicians of the 1920s and 1930s. Displaying an extraordinary range on the twelve-string guitar, this Atlanta-based…
Blind Willie Mctell By Bob Dylan
Pictured in an Atlanta hotel room in 1940, Blind Willie McTell holds a twelve-string guitar. He recorded many blues classics, including Statesboro Blues. McTell was the only bluesman to remain active in Atlanta (in the Decatur Street district) well after World War II.
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After learning to play guitar in Statesboro, blues musician Blind Willie McTell traveled a circuit that included Atlanta, Augusta, Savannah, and Macon during the 1920s and 1930s.
Hometown History: Blind Willie Mctell
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Blind Willie McTell, a native of Thomson, was a great blues musician of the 1920s and 1930s. Based in Atlanta, he displayed an extraordinary range on the twelve-string guitar.Blind Sammie, Georgia Bill, Hot Shot Willie, Blind Willie, Barrelhouse Sammy, Pig & Whistle Red, Blind Doogie, Red Hot Willie Glaze, Red Hot Willie, Eddie McTier
Blind Willie McTell (born William Samuel McTier; May 5, 1898 – August 19, 1959) was a Piedmont blues and ragtime singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponts of Piedmont blues. Unlike his contemporaries, he came to use twelve-string guitars exclusively. McTell was also an adept slide guitarist, unusual among ragtime bluesm. His vocal style, a smooth and oft laid-back tor, differed greatly from many of the harsher voices of Delta bluesm such as Charley Patton. McTell performed in various musical styles, including blues, ragtime, religious music and hokum.
S Stella 12 String Acoustic Guitar 26.5
McTell was born in Thomson, Georgia. He learned to play the guitar in his early tes. He soon became a street performer in several Georgia cities, including Atlanta and Augusta, and first recorded in 1927 for Victor Records. He never produced a major hit record, but he had a prolific recording career with differt labels and under differt names in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1940, he was recorded by the folklorist John A. Lomax and Ruby Terrill Lomax for the folk song archive of the Library of Congress. He was active in the 1940s and 1950s, playing on the streets of Atlanta, oft with his longtime associate Curley Weaver. Twice more he recorded professionally. His last recordings originated during an impromptu session recorded by an Atlanta record store owner in 1956. McTell 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 geration who continued to actively play and record during the 1940s and 1950s. He did not live to see the American folk music revival, in which many other bluesm were rediscovered.
McTell's influce extded over a wide variety of artists, including the Allman Brothers Band, who covered his Statesboro Blues, and Bob Dylan, who paid tribute to him in his 1983 song Blind Willie McTell, the refrain of which is And I know no one can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell. Other artists influced by McTell include Taj Mahal, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Ralph McTell, Chris Smither, Jack White, and the White Stripes.
In the Happy Valley community outside Thomson, Georgia. Most sources give the date of his birth as 1898, but researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc suggest 1903, on the basis of his try in the 1910 csus.
Songs You Should Know By (and About) Blind Willie Mctell
McTell was born blind in one eye and lost his remaining vision by late childhood. He attded schools for the blind in Georgia, New York and Michigan and showed proficicy in music from an early age, first playing the harmonica and accordion, learning to read and write music in Braille,
His family background was rich in music; both of his parts and an uncle played the guitar. He was related to the bluesman and gospel pioneer Thomas A. Dorsey.
McTell's father left the family wh Willie was young. After his mother died, in the 1920s, he left his hometown and became an itinerant musician, or songster. He began his recording career in 1927 for Victor Records in Atlanta.
Blind Willie Mctell & The Carter Family
Now better known as Kate McTell, in 1934. She
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