Art & Creativity Quote by Brownie McGhee

“Just plain people” is doing a lot of work here. Brownie McGhee isn’t romanticizing poverty or pitching some Hallmark version of authenticity; he’s drawing a line around who gets to be heard, and why. Folk and blues, in his telling, aren’t “genres” first. They’re a social function: everyday people making sense of hard days, small joys, bad luck, desire, work, and survival with whatever tools are on hand - a guitar, a voice, a story you can’t keep inside.

The word “Logically” matters, too. McGhee frames this as obvious, almost mechanical: if you trace the roots honestly, you end up at the people who weren’t supposed to have cultural authority. That’s a quiet rebuke to the way institutions and tastemakers sanitize the blues into museum pieces or turn folk into a curated lifestyle brand. He’s saying: you can dress it up, but it’s born from the unglamorous. Treat it like “art music” without acknowledging the people, and you miss the point.

Context sharpens the edge. McGhee came up in an era when Black musicians were routinely marketed, exploited, and boxed into stereotypes even as their music shaped American culture. His statement doubles as a claim of ownership and dignity. Blues and folk aren’t exotic artifacts to be collected; they’re community speech. When “plain people” sing, they’re not asking permission. They’re leaving a record.