Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee – Live On Skip Weshner’s Accent On Sound Program – KRHM-FM – March 30, 1959 –
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee performing live at The Ash Grove and recorded for Skip Weshner’s Accent On Sound March 30, 1959 over KRHM-FM, Los Angeles.
Historic recording for a bunch of reasons. One: Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee were such solid fixtures on the West Coast (most notably Los Angeles) folk and blues scene that it was hard to go to either The Troubadour or The Ash Grove (or The Ice House in Pasadena) or any one of the myriad folk clubs all throughout the 60s and not see them at least once every few months. They were such practitioners of the Folk/Blues genre that became so prevalent after World War 2 that it was widely assumed the whole thing originated with them. They were a mainstay both on the West Coast and East Coast all the way into the 1970s. Second: this was a live broadcast featuring Skip Weshner, who hosted programs on FM in both New York and Los Angeles – in L.A. it was primarily the Ash Grove and in New York it was primarily #1 Sheridan Square. Weshner was perfect for FM because FM Radio at the time was the domain of either the wealthy or the Hi-Fi enthusiast as the sonic quality of FM was markedly superior to that of AM radio – and because FM was largely ignored by the mainstream, it was the perfect ground floor for live performances. Third: if you stick around to the end, past the program i.d. you’ll get the station i.d. – KRHM was located at 94.7 on the FM dial. Fans of the early days of FM Underground know that frequency in L.A. as belonging to KMET, the station that KRHM eventually became in the early 1960s. Early KMET (with Tom Donahue and B. Mitchel Reed) was noted for its eclectic music programming, most likely an unconscious nod to this earlier incarnation.
In any event, its a 40 minute set from Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, two stalwarts of the L.A. music scene from a club that was one of the cornerstones of the contemporary L.A. Music Scene from the late 1950s to the 1980s.
A good time was had by all – press play and enjoy.
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