Disc 1
1 Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee
2 Baby Baby Blues
3 Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee
4 Tall Pretty Woman
5 Lonesome Road Blues
6 Blue Mixture
7 I'll Always Remember
8 Blue and Brokenhearted
9 My Baby's Comin' Back
10 Drank Up All the Wine Last Night
11 Venus Blues
12 Southern Menu
13 Let's Do It
14 She's Gone Rock Away Blues
15 House Warmin' Boogie
16 Blue Barrelhouse
17 One Monkey Don't Stop the Show
18 Tennessee Waltz Blues
19 You Gotta Have Something on the Ball
20 Oh What a Face
21 Wee Wee Hours, Pt. 1
22 Wee Wee Hours, Pt. 2
23 New Found Love
24 Meet You in the Morning
25 My Little Rose
26 No More Reveille
Disc 2
1 Little Things We Used to Do
2 Blues in My Heart & Tears in My Eyes
3 Whiskey Women and Loaded Dice
4 Head Happy with Wine
5 I'm Doin' All This Time (And You Put Me Down)
6 Dealin' from the Bottom
7 The Wiggle Waggle Woo
8 Jungle Juice
9 Ease My Worried Mind
10 Things Have Changed
11 Travelin' On
12 Help Me Baby
13 Double Crossin' Liquor
14 Six to Eight
15 Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter
16 Sad, Bad, Glad
17 Bad Nerves
18 Sweet Baby Blues
19 Don't Mistreat Me
20 Four O'Clock in the Morning
21 Sweet Lover
22 Brownie's New Worried Life Blues
23 I Was Fooled
24 Confused
25 It Hurts Me Too
26 Contact Me
Disc 3
1 Yellow Moon
2 It's Over
3 True Blues
4 My Consolation
5 New Sporting Life Blues
6 C.C. Baby
7 You Got to Love Me Baby Too
8 My Other Home
9 Weeping Willow
10 Feed Me Baby
11 Meet You in the Morning
12 I Feel So Good
13 Key to the Highway
14 Stranger's Blues
15 Sittin' on Top of the World
16 Mean Old Frisco
17 Mean Old Frisco [Alternate Take]
18 New Bad Blood Blues
19 Lover (Ease My Worried Mind)
20 Dissatisfied Woman
21 Pawn Shop Blues
22 Forgive Me
23 C.C. Rider, Where Did She Go
24 Heartache Blues
25 Read Good Feelin'
26 A Letter to Lightnin' Hopkins
27 Smiling and Crying the Blues
Disc 4
1 I'm Gonna Move Cross the River
2 Heart in Sorrow
3 Dissatisfied Blues
4 Diamond Ring
5 The Way I Feel
6 So Much Trouble
7 Gone Baby Gone
8 Tell Me Baby
9 Sittin' Pretty
10 Bottom Blues
11 Keys to the Highway
12 I Have Had My Fun
13 Airplane Blues
14 Telephone Blues
15 Mad Man Blues
16 Dirty Mistreater, Don't You Know
17 Women Is Killing Me
18 Harmonica Train
19 Going Down Slow
20 Man Ain't Nothin' But a Fool
21 Baby, Let's Have Some Fun
22 4 O'Clock Blues
23 Lonesome Room
24 No Love Blues
25 Wine Headed Woman
26 Bad Luck Blues
Granville McGhee, born in 1917 in Knoxville, TN, was two years younger than his brother Brownie, who contracted polio and was left with a right leg shorter than the left. Granville made him a cart and became known as 'Stick', for the wooden utensil with which he pushed the cart. Both boys learned guitar from their father. The brothers played at parties, sometimes Brownie playing piano. Then they met Lesley Riddles, a multi-instrumentalist who worked the riverboats for drinking parties escaping 'dry' Sullivan County. Brownie and Riddles played guitar and Stick would dance with 'a couple of girls with short dresses on'. America entered the war and Stick landed at boot camp in St. Petersburg, FL, where he put together a song which would become Drinkin' Wine, Spo De O Dee Drinkin' Wine. Stick's war service lasted four years. Back in New York in 1946 he wasted no time in doing a session with his brother, as part of Dan Burley's Skiffle Boys. Thereafter, Brownie would work with Stick on the 'wine' song. Eventually they cut it on the obscure Harlem label. It sank without trace. In February 1949 Ahmet Ertegun wanting to record the obscure song, phoned the only blues singer he knew in New York - Brownie McGhee. A session followed. The Atlantic version hung around the R&B charts for 22 weeks, climbing to No. 3. There was an obstacle. 'We forgot about the original version. Next thing we know, Decca is competing with us. They found the original version, and put it back on the market. But we outsold them ...' Drinkin' Wine was Atlantic's first hit. At the turn of 52/53, Stick signed with King Records. Stick went on to work for a variety of labels - a progress that's documented here. There was a final single for Herald in 1960, with Sonny Terry in attendance. In the same year he died from lung cancer in the Bronx Veterans Hospital on August 15, 1961. Also featured on this collection are Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee who, as a duo and solo, took blues to the world. |
