American Piedmont blues and ragtime singer William McTier went by many names – Blind Sammie, Georgia Bill, etc, but he is known by most music fans as Blind Willie McTell.

McTell, who was blind from a young age, learned to read and write music in braille. His family was full of musicians so it’s no surprise he learned to play not only the guitar – both finger picking and slide + 12 and 6 string – but also accordion and harmonica.

He had a prolific recording career full of a variety of musical stylings including gospel, hokum (a personal favorite of mine…naughty!) and of course blues and ragtime.

He never had a lot of commercial success but had quite a loyal following nonetheless. He was recorded by the Lomax family for the Library of Congress and I highly recommend a listen to those tunes. And the list of bands and songwriters who acknowledge McTell as an inspiration is pretty darn long. Just a short list: Bob Dylan has 4 songs about him, and Taj Mahal and the Allman Brothers Band covered McTell’s “Statesboro Blues.”

He died of a stroke in 1959. He’s buried at the Jones Grove Baptist Church and while he sings of flowers on his grave most folks leave quarters or liquor in a nod to his days of street busking.

On a side note, my partner was very enthused about this visit as he had just discovered hokum as a genre! So after all these years Blind Willie McTell is influencing people. How cool is that? And my partner’s reflection is on the grave just FYI. I felt it fitting to leave it in…

In the early 1990’s there was a resurgence of interest for McTell’s story. Author David Fulmer filmed a documentary about McTell and then had the modern blue marble gravestone placed in the cemetery. Blind Willie’s Blues is on YouTube so take a gander!

There’s a Blind Willie McTell Festival every year in Thomson and this year will be the 31st annual event.

As for the historic African-American Jones Grove Church where McTell is buried, it is marked temporarily closed. The grounds crew have been busy but the sign has fallen and the baptismal pool is covered in sheets of tin and nailed shut. With most of the nearby houses abandoned, you definitely feel like a tiny speck in the quiet of this Georgia farmland…