Walter Brown ("Brownie") McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was… Read Full Bio ↴Walter Brown ("Brownie") McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was a Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry as Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee.

Brownie McGhee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. As a child he had polio, which incapacitated his leg. His brother Granville "Sticks" or "Stick" McGhee was nicknamed for pushing young Brownie around in a cart. His father, George McGhee, was a factory worker known around University Avenue for playing guitar and singing. Brownie's uncle made him a guitar from a tin marshmallow box and a piece of board.[4] McGhee spent much of his youth immersed in music, singing with local harmony group the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet and teaching himself to play guitar. A March of Dimes-funded leg operation enabled McGhee to walk.

At age 22, Brownie McGhee became a traveling musician, working in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and befriending Blind Boy Fuller, whose guitar playing influenced him greatly. After Fuller's death in 1941, J. B. Long of Columbia Records had McGhee adopt his mentor's name, branding him "Blind Boy Fuller No. 2." By that time, McGhee was recording for Columbia's subsidiary Okeh Records in Chicago, but his real success came after he moved to New York in 1942, when he teamed up with Sonny Terry, whom he had known since 1939 when Sonny was Blind Boy Fuller's harmonica player. The pairing was an overnight success; as well as recording, they toured together until around 1980. As a duo, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee did most of their work from 1958 until 1980, spending 11 months of each year touring, and recording dozens of albums.

Despite their later fame as "pure" folk artists playing for white audiences, in the 1940s Terry and McGhee also attempted to be successful black recording performers, fronting a jump blues combo with honking saxophone and rolling piano, variously calling themselves "Brownie McGhee and his Jook House Rockers" or "Sonny Terry and his Buckshot Five," often with Champion Jack Dupree and Big Chief Ellis. They also appeared in the original Broadway productions of Finian's Rainbow and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

During the blues revival of the 1960s, Terry and McGhee were very popular on the concert and music festival circuits, occasionally adding new material but usually remaining faithful to their roots and their audience. With Sonny Terry, he appeared in the 1979 Steve Martin comedy The Jerk. In 1987, McGhee gave a small but memorable performance as ill-fated blues singer Toots Sweet in the supernatural thriller movie, Angel Heart. He appeared in a 1988 episode of "Family Ties" titled "The Blues Brother" in which he played fictional blues musician Eddie Dupre, as well as a 1989 episode of Matlock entitled "The Blues Singer."

Happy Traum, a former guitar student of Brownie's, edited a blues guitar instruction guide and songbook for him. Using a tape recorder, Traum had McGhee instruct and, between lessons, talk about his life and the blues. Guitar Styles of Brownie McGhee was published in New York in 1971. The autobiographical section features Brownie talking about growing up, his musical beginnings, and a history of the early blues period (1930s onward).

One of McGhee's final concert appearances was at the 1995 Chicago Blues Festival.
McGhee died from stomach cancer in February 1996 in Oakland, California at age 80; he missed his planned return trip to Australia.

Double Trouble
Brownie McGhee Lyrics

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Yes I got double trouble
What am I gonna do now?
Want to leave here

Well you had trouble, I've got troubles too
Got double trouble, what am I gonna do?
I believe I'll leave here
I don't feel good no more

Well the woman I been lovin'
Don't love me no more

I was goin' down the street
Didn't have one dime
The woman I been lovin'
Didn't pay me no mind
I believe I'll leave here
I don't feel good no more
Ah the woman I been lovin'
Drove me from her door

Play it for me boys!
My father told me
When I was only a kid
What you gonna do son
Things happen like this
I believe I'll leave here
I don't feel good no more
Yeah the woman I been lovin'
Drove me from her door

Well must I had now
Your heart in my hand
I would teach you little woman
How to treat a man
I believe I'll leave here
I don't feel good no more
I'm blamin' you woman
Drove me from your door

Play it for me boys! Yeah double trouble!

Overall Meaning

Brownie McGhee's song "Double Trouble" is about a man facing a difficult situation in his life. He has encountered multiple problems, and it seems there is no solution. The lyrics describe how the woman he used to love has stopped loving him, which has resulted in him feeling down and hopeless. The singer also has financial problems, and he doesn't have any money to his name. He is stressed and overwhelmed by his troubles, and he decides to leave everything behind.

One thing that sets the song apart is its recurring line about "double trouble." The singer points out that he has two sets of issues he is contending with. The woman he has fallen out of love with and the lack of money he's currently going through. He believes that he needs to leave that situation to make a change in his life to put an end to his double trouble.

The song also features a conversation between the singer and his father, with the father asking his son what he's going to do about his problems. The song is an excellent representation of the blues genre because it portrays the struggle that the singer is facing.

Double TroubleBrownie McGhee Lyrics

Double Trouble
Brownie McGhee Lyrics