Kate McTell (born Ruthy Kate Williams; August 22, 1911 – October 3, 1991) was an American

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

musician and nurse from Jefferson County, Georgia. She is known primarily as the former wife of the blues musician

Blind Willie McTell Blind Willie McTell (born William Samuel McTier; 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 bl ...

, whom she accompanied vocally on several recordings. She may have recorded as Ruby Glaze, but there is some uncertainty about whether she and Glaze were the same person, despite the fact that she claimed to be Glaze.

Early life and marriage to Blind Willie McTell

Ruthy (later changed to Ruth) Kate Williams was born in

Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

. She was singing for a high-school ceremony in

Augusta, Georgia Augusta ( ), officially Augusta–Richmond County, is a consolidated city-county on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The city lies across the Savannah River from South Carolina at the head of its navig ...

, in 1933 when she was noticed by McTell, who regularly performed in the area. In an interview conducted by the musicologist

David Evans David, Dave, or Dai Evans may refer to: Academics * Sir David Emrys Evans (1891–1966), Welsh classicist and university principal * David Evans (microbiologist) (1909–1984), British microbiologist * David Stanley Evans (1916–2004), British a ...

and his family, she stated that she and Willie met at a Christmas concert at her school in 1931.Gray (2007). p. 230. She went on to explain that Willie invited her to record with him, that they did so in Atlanta over the course of a week, and that she then returned to Augusta to continue her schooling at Paine College. According to Michael Gray, that week of recording would have been in February 1932. The McTells were married on January 11, 1934. For the next six years she often accompanied Willie on stage, singing or dancing, in performances in Chicago, Atlanta and elsewhere, and in the company of artists such as

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

and

Bessie Smith Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and ...

. The two were invited to record for

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American ...

by executive

Mayo Williams Jay Mayo "Ink" Williams (September 25, 1894 – January 2, 1980) was a pioneering African-American producer of recorded blues music. Some historians have claimed that Ink Williams earned his nickname by his ability to get the signatures of t ...

in 1935, but the recordings from these sessions had extremely limited releases. In late June 1936, they recorded 12 blues songs with

Piano Red Willie Lee Perryman (October 19, 1911 – July 25, 1985), usually known professionally as Piano Red and later in life as Dr. Feelgood, was an American blues musician, the first to hit the pop music charts. He was a self-taught pianist who played ...

for

Vocalion Records Vocalion Records is an American record company and label. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...

. In 1939, she obtained a nursing certificate from Grady Hospital in Atlanta, and from 1942 until 1971 she was an army nurse at

Fort Gordon Fort Gordon, formerly known as Camp Gordon, is a United States Army installation established in October 1941. It is the current home of the United States Army Signal Corps, United States Army Cyber Command, and the Cyber Center of Excellence. It ...

hospital, near Augusta. As Willie lived in Atlanta for his career, the two rarely saw each other and drifted apart. Much of what is known about her husband comes from the interview she gave with the Evans family, published in '' Blues Unlimited'' magazine in 1977.

After his death

Ten years after her husband's death in 1959, she married Johnny E. Seabrooks, who was in the military. They had two children, Ernest and April. She retired from the hospital in 1971. After Seabrooks died in 1976, she lived a fairly private life, except for interviews she gave in 1977, 1979, and 1981 about Willie McTell. She died in Augusta, Georgia, on October 3, 1991.

As Ruby Glaze

There is some uncertainty as to whether Ruby Glaze, a singer with whom Willie McTell recorded in 1932, is the same person as Kate McTell. In an interview conducted in the 1970s, she claimed that she was Glaze.Gray (2007). p. 229. The uncertainty stems from confusion over when she first met Willie and whether or not this was after he had recorded with Glaze.

Bruce Bastin Bruce Bastin (born 19 September 1939) is an English folklorist and a leading expert on the blues styles of the southeastern states of America, (East Coast Blues and Piedmont Blues). In 2022, his publication ''Red River Blues: The Blues Tradition ...

gave the year of their meeting as 1931, at her graduation from Paine College, in Augusta, Georgia, and stated that immediately afterward she went on to Washington High in Atlanta, which is where and when Willie recorded with Glaze. Bastin also noted the similarities between Glaze's spoken parts in "Searching the Desert for the Blues" and the ones in the McTells' recording of " Ticket Agent Blues" in 1935. As mentioned above, McTell told the musicologist David Evans and his family that she had met Willie in late 1931 and that they recorded soon afterward over the course of a week. Gray placed this recording in February 1932. Some sources have claimed that McTell and Glaze are the same person,Conner, Patrick.
Blind Willie McTell
". ''East Coast Piedmont Blues''. University of North Carolina. Retrieved 2011-09-23. while others have claimed that they are not.

Discography

Kate McTell appears on a small number of albums, generally accompanying her husband on vocals. * ''Blind Willie McTell 1927–1949'' (Willie McTell) * ''Mississippi-Memphis-Chicago Blues'' (various artists) * '' The Essential'' (Willie McTell) * ''Gospel, Vol. 3: Guitar Evangelists and Bluesmen 1927–1944'' (various artists) * ''Le Gospel 1939–1952'' (various artists), containing a solo track, "Dying Gambler"

Other information

*She is referred to in a blues song, "Blind Willie", by

Hans Theessink Hans Theessink (born 5 April 1948, Enschede, Netherlands) is a Dutch guitarist, mandolinist, singer and songwriter, living in Vienna, Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the south ...

, in the lyric "Ruthy Kate leading Willie by the hand".

Citations

References

* Bastin, B.
Red River Blues: The Blues Tradition in the Southeast
'. 1986. Illini Books. . Retrieved 2011-09-22. * Gray, M.
Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell
'. 2007. Bloomsbury Publishing, London. . Retrieved 2011-09-22.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McTell, Kate 1911 births 1991 deaths American blues singers 20th-century American singers