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Fact #111927

When:

Short story:

Stick McGhee And His Buddies record Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee for Atlantic Records in New York City, USA. The track is a re-make of a song he had previously recorded for a smaller label with no success, but this new version will launch Atlantic Records into the charts for the first time. At the same session, McGhee also records Tall Pretty Woman Blues, Lonesome Road Blues, Blues Mixture, I'll Always Remember and Blues And Broken Hearted. Brownie McGhee plays guitar on the session.

Full article:

Ahmet Ertegun (founder of Atlantic Records) : This big record distributor in New Orleans called me one day in 1949. He was looking for a blues record that was selling so fast he couldn't keep them in stock. It was on some obscure label and he asked if I could help him find it. He wanted 10,000 copies.

Now that floored me: The most he had ever ordered of any of our records was 25 copies!

I had never heard of the label, but I told him that if he'd send me a copy of the record, we'd go into the studio and make an exact copy. The record turned out to be Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee by someone named Stick McGhee.

Now the only two blues singers in New York at the time were Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. So, I called Brownie . . . and it turned out Stick was his brother.

So, Brownie put me in touch with Stick and I asked him if he's under contract to anybody. As soon as he said "No," I got him into the studio and we made our version of Spo-Dee-O-Dee.

(Source : interview by Robert Hilburn in Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1998)