Tommy McClennan
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Use American English Template:Infobox musical artist
Tommy McClennan (January 4, 1905<ref name="msbluestrail1">Template:Cite web</ref> – May 9, 1961) was an American Delta blues singer and guitarist.<ref name="Music">Template:Cite book</ref>
Life and career
McClennan was born in Durant, Mississippi, and grew up in the town.<ref name="msbluestrail1"/> He played and sang blues in a rough, energetic style.
He made a series of recordings for Bluebird Records from 1939<ref name="Russell 2">Template:Cite book</ref> through 1942. He regularly played with his friend Robert Petway.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His voice is heard in the background on Petway's recording of "Boogie Woogie Woman" (1942).<ref name="russell"/> McClennan's singles in this period included "Bottle It Up and Go", "New Highway No. 51", "Shake 'Em on Down", and "Whiskey Head Woman".<ref name="russell">Template:Cite book</ref>
Several of his songs have been covered by other musicians, including "Cross Cut Saw Blues" (covered by Albert King) and "My Baby's Gone" (Moon Mullican).<ref name="amg">Template:Cite web</ref> Bob Dylan covered Tommy McClennan's track, "Highway 51" (which was written by Curtis Jones), on his self-titled debut album in 1962.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> McClennan's "I'm a Guitar King" was included in the 1959 collection The Country Blues, issued by Folkways Records.
McClennan died of bronchopneumonia in Chicago, Illinois, on May 9, 1961.<ref name="msbluestrail1"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Citation
"He had a different style of playing a guitar", Big Bill Broonzy said. "You just make the chords and change when you feel like changing"<ref name="russell"/>
John Fahey's compilation set Screamin' and Hollerin' the Blues: The Worlds of Charley Patton contained an interview with Booker Miller, a contemporary of Charlie Patton's, in which Miller mentioned someone who is most likely Tommy McClennan, though Miller did not know his name: "... and I saw another fella he put some records out, they (him and Willie Brown) be together, but he be by himself when I see him, they called him "Sugar"... I ain't never known him as nothing but Sugar, he put out a record called Bottle Up and Go... I sold him my guitar."
See also
References
External links
- 1905 births
- 1961 deaths
- Delta blues musicians
- Country blues musicians
- American blues singers
- American blues guitarists
- American male guitarists
- Blues musicians from Mississippi
- Bluebird Records artists
- People from Yazoo City, Mississippi
- 20th-century American guitarists
- Guitarists from Mississippi
- People from Durant, Mississippi
- African-American guitarists
- 20th-century African-American male singers
- 20th-century American male singers
- 20th-century American singers