Happy Birthday to McDuffie County’s “Statesboro Blues” ManWilliam Samuel McTier, famously known world-wide as Blind Willie McTell, was born in the Happy Valley area south of Thomson, Georgia on May 5, the exact year is a bit in question but it’s possibly 1898. McTell was born blind in one eye and lost his remaining vision in his early childhood. He attended schools for the blind and showed proficiency in music from an early age, first playing the harmonica and accordion, learning to read and write music in Braille, and turning to the six-string guitar in his early teens. His family background was rich in music; both of his parents and an uncle played the guitar. McTell's father left the family when Willie was young. After his mother died in the 1920s, he left home to become a traveling musician. Willie was a regular at house rent parties, on street corners, at fish fries, as well as working the medicine and tent show circuit. In 1933 he is known to have worked street corners with Blind Willie Johnson, a formidable pair of performers. He continued to record up until 1936 for Victor, Vocalion and Decca, working with Piano Red, Curley Weaver and his wife Kate whom he married in 1934. She accompanied him on stage and on several recordings before becoming a nurse in 1939. For most of their marriage, from 1942 until his death, they lived apart (she in Fort Gordon, near Augusta, and he around Atlanta). Throughout this period he played for tips, down on Atlanta’s Decatur Street, as well as hoboing through the South and East. Read the full story here.
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