Description
Blind Willie McTell (May 5, 1898 August 19, 1959) was a Piedmont blues and ragtime singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont blues. Unlike his contemporaries, he came to use twelve-string guitars exclusively. McTell was also an adept slide guitarist, unusual among ragtime bluesmen. His vocal style, a smooth and often laid-back tenor, differed greatly from many of the harsher voices of Delta bluesmen such as Charley Patton.
McTells influence extended over a wide variety of artists, including the Allman Brothers Band, who covered his Statesboro Blues, and Bob Dylan, who paid tribute to him in his 1983 song Blind Willie McTell, the refrain of which is And I know no one can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell. Other artists influenced by McTell include Taj Mahal, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Ralph McTell, Chris Smither and the White Stripes.
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