Anthology of American Folk Music
Volume 2: Social Music, Track 55

FIFTY MILES OF ELBOW ROOM
Rev. F.M. McGee

Recorded New York: June 16, 1930
Rev. F.M. McGee, vocal with cingregation; possibly Red Allen, trumpet, additional guitar and piano
Originally released on Victor 23401


Rev. Ford Washington McGee was a native of Winchester, Tennessee, where he was born in October, 1890. McGee was raised in farming communities just east of Dallas, Texas. A descendant of Booker T. Washington on his mother's side, he attended college in Oklahoma and trained to be a teacher, but the Spirit called him and he became an evangelist and faith healer. Arizona Dranes (a blind female pianist and vocalist) helped him to build a large congregation in the Oklahoma City Church of God in Christ, from which he successfully evangelized throughout the lower Midwest during the early 1920s. In 1925 he migrated to Chicago and at first operated a "canvas" church on 33rd Street in the predominately African American South Side, but within three years he had begun building the first of his "Temples" on Vincennes. In the company of Dranes and the Church of God in Christ Jubilee Singers, McGee made the first of his sanctified sermon records for Okeh in June of 1927, thus launching a recording career that would last for almost three years. Most of his records were issued by the Victor label and included the accompaniment of a variety of horn, string, and rhythm instruments. Although his recording career was truncated by the Depression, McGee continued to move in the upper echelons of the Church of God in Christ until his death in 1971. He eventually became a Church Bishop in both Chicago and New York City.


FOR ADDITIONAL RECORDINGS of McGee see: The Complete Recorded Works (RST Europe 6031c); Rev. F.M. McGee (Roots 338a); and the collections An Introduction to Gospel Song (FW RF5c); Religious Music: Congregational and Ceremonial (LC LBC 1a); and Traditional Jazz in Rural Churches (Truth 1001a). For more information on McGee see the interview in American Folk Music Occasional 1970, pg. 49-52; and Blues Unlimited #60 (March 1969).

OTHER RECORDED VERSIONS include:
Post revival: as Fifty Miles of Elbow Room: Iris Dement (PH 1138c).