Tommy McClennan was one of America’s most successful down-home blues recording artists during the years he recorded twenty singles for the Bluebird label from 1939 to 1942. Among his most notable songs were "Bottle It Up and Go," "Cross Cut Saw," "Travelin' Highway Man," and "New Highway No. 51 Blues." He was famed for his raucous, uninhibited singing and guitar playing and was closely associated with Yazoo City, where he frequented the Water Street area and had lived on the nearby J. F. Sligh plantation. Sources differ on his birth: Big Bill Broonzy wrote that he was born in Yazoo City in April 1908, while his death certificate gave Durant in Holmes County as his birthplace and January 4, 1905, as his birth date. Census records placed him with his mother Cassie and his siblings in Carroll County in 1910, with the family on a plantation near Sidon in Leflore County in 1920, and with his wife Ophelia in Leflore County in 1930, when his occupation was listed as teamster. His surname appeared in records under several spellings, but McClennan was used on his recordings. Other bluesmen remembered him from elsewhere in the Delta, including Bolivar County and Vance, but he was best known around Greenwood and Yazoo City, where he was called "Sugar" by Booker Miller and "Bottle Up" by local residents after his popular song. After Miller quit playing in 1937, he sold his guitar to McClennan. In the Greenwood area, McClennan performed with Robert Petway and Honeyboy Edwards. In the 1950s, Samuel Charters learned that McClennan had spent time in Yazoo City at the Ren Theater, an adjacent barroom, a pool hall, and the Cotton Club on Champlin Avenue. McClennan began recording in 1939 after Chicago producer Lester Melrose came looking for him. In Chicago, he recorded in a gruff, unbridled style, sometimes punctuating performances with lively spoken encouragement to himself. Broonzy recalled that controversial lyrics in "Bottle It Up and Go" got McClennan chased from a Chicago party. Petway, his friend and sometime counterpart in style, also recorded for Bluebird, and both men’s recording careers ended in 1942, though Bluebird and RCA Victor continued issuing McClennan singles for several years. McClennan later moved to Chicago, but few reports place him performing there. Honeyboy Edwards last saw him drinking heavily and living in a hobo jungle. McClennan died of bronchopneumonia in Chicago on May 9, 1961.