Flat-top guitar picker Sam McGee was, with his fiddling brother Kirk McGee, half of the McGee Brothers, who were among the earliest fraternal duos in country music, and were headline stars as well as successful sidemen for such performers as Uncle Dave Macon and Fiddling Arthur Smith. Born just south of Nashville in Williamson County, Tennessee, the brothers were influenced by their old-time fiddle-playing father, with Sam playing at dances as early as the first decade of the 1900s. Sam joined Uncle Dave Macon's group in 1925, and the brothers began recording their own songs around the same time. They remained active well into the '40s, and made a comeback in 1955; they continued to perform until Sam McGee's death in 1975.