History:

McKinney was a folk duo from New Hampshire. The duo consisted of brothers Tod McKinney and Malcom McKinney. The two brothers started their music career in the 1960's. 

The two formed a band called Sugar Creek with Jonathan Edwards on guitar and drummer Gary Gans. Malcom played guitar and Tod played bass guitar. The blues rock quartet recorded one full length album, titled "Please Tell A Friend" for Meteomedia Records in 1969. No singles originated from the album and their psychedelic blues sound wasn't enough to differentiate them from the competition. 

The quartet broke up, and I supposed McKinney was born some time after that. Johnathan Edwards went on to have a huge hit, "Sunshine" in 1971. He put out some country records during that time on Capricorn. Malcom wrote a few songs for Edwards' first two albums. Those were "Don't Cry Blue", "Angelina", and "Sometimes". Two of those would be re-recorded by McKinney himself.

Meanwhile, McKinney was on the local scene playing and eventually scrounged together enough material for a full length album. Simply titled "McKinney", the album of all original tracks was released on their own Bee Hole Records in 1976. McKinney features acoustic folk rock sounds with bluegrass, country, and blues moves. Malcom played acoustic and slide guitar while Tod played bass guitar. Both sang. 

They were featured by a long list of guest musicians. Comedian and famous novelty musician Martin Mull played lead and rhythm guitars on the final track on the album. He also produced that one. It appears as though Edwards, the McKinneys, and Martin Mull were all really good friends. Mull and Edwards were both on Capricorn during this period in the 70's. Kenny Miller played autoharp on a track or two as well as slide on one song. Jonathan Edwards' and Tom Rush's pianist Stuart Schulman played both fiddle and piano throughout the album.

After this album, it's unclear what happened to the brothers or if they still perform. If memory serves me correct, both brothers are still alive.

Review:

McKinney (1976, Bee Hole Records)

Rating: 8/10

A personal favorite of mine in the folk genre. Bluegrass and blues influenced folk with good lyricism and nice vocals. Songwriting is pretty good and the instrumentation is quite creative at times. Features some of my all time favorite folk songs, including "One Fine Day", "Angeline", "Sometimes" and "Goodbye My Lady". Those are absolutely beautiful tunes. The rural / raw bluegrass and blues tracks are also pretty neat. Not for everyone but definitely for me, ha.