Stick McGhee - Entertainment Career

Entertainment Career

In the military, Granville often played his guitar. One of the songs, that McGhee was best known for, was "Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee". The original lyrics of the song were as follows:

Drinkin’ that mess is our delight, And when we get drunk, start fightin’ all night. Knockin’ out windows and learnin’ down doors, Drinkin’ half-gallons and callin’ for more. Drinkin’ wine motherfucker, drinkin’ wine! Goddam! Drinkin’ wine motherfucker, drinkin’ wine! Goddam! Drinkin’ wine motherfucker, drinkin’ wine! Goddam! Pass that bottle to me!

This song was one of the earliest prototypical rock and roll songs, and was covered by Jerry Lee Lewis and Mike Bloomfield's Electric Flag (as "Wine"). The song lent its name to the alcoholic fruit drink, spodi. In 1946, Granville and Brownie McGhee collaborated and modified the song into a clean cut version for Harlem Records. The song was released a year later in January 1947 at the price of 49 cents. The song did not get much airplay time until two years later, when Granville recreated the song for Atlantic Records. As a result, it rose to Number 3 on the Billboard R&B chart.

His songs attracted countless covers over the years. The first cover was by Lionel Hampton featuring Sonny Parker, then Wynonie Harris, and lastly, Loy Gordon & His Pleasant Valley Boys with their hillbilly-bop rendition. His song "Drinkin' Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee" maintained its popularity throughout the 1950s by various artists, including Malcolm Yelvington in 1954, Johnny Burnette in 1957, and Jerry Lee Lewis in 1959.

McGhee continued to make records for Atlantic and created popular songs such as "Tennessee Waltz", "Drank Up All the Wine Last Night", "Venus Blues", "Let's Do It", and "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show" but his music career overall was not successful. McGhee moved from Atlantic to Essex to create a record called "My Little Rose". The record failed so he moved to King in 1953. There he recorded a number of rock and roll songs such a "Whiskey, Women and Loaded Dice", "Head Happy With Wine", "Jungle Juice", "Six to Eight", "Double Crossin' Liquor", "Dealin' from the Bottom", and "Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter". However, he was unable to make money out of his records so he left King to record for Savoy in 1955, but retired from the music industry in 1960 because he lost his passion for music.