Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee

The musical couple formed by harmonica player Sonny Terry and guitarist Brownie McGhee largely participated, from the beginning of the 1940s, in the recognition of the blues as a musical genre in its own right. They both come from the blues tradition of the east coast of the United States. This East-Coast Blues is much lighter , less dramatic and also more virtuosic and sophisticated than the Mississippi blues . It is also characterized by the use of alternating bass effects and the use of ragtime figures in the chord progressions. During the “ blues boom ” of the early 1960s, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee personified authentic blues for many, both in the United States and in Europe. At the height of their art and their notoriety, together or individually, they went through all the evolutions of African-American music from the end of the 1930s to the 1970s.