About Blind Willie McTell
Blind Willie McTell (born William Samuel McTier; circa 1903 – 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 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." 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. His popularity was greatest in the decades after his death.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.