"Blind Boy Fuller (born Fulton Allen, July 10, 1904 or 1907), a Piedmont
blues guitarist and singer who was one of the most popular recorded
musicians of his era. He was born in Wadesboro, North Carolina, one of
ten children of Calvin Allen and Mary Jane Walker. After the death of
his mother, he moved with his father to Rockingham, North Carolina. As a
boy he learned to play the guitar and also learned from older singers
the field hollers, country rags, traditional songs, and blues popular in
poor rural areas of North Carolina.
"In his teens he worked as a laborer when he began to lose his eyesight. By
1928 he was completely blind, and a 1937 eye examination attributed his
vision loss to the long-term effects of untreated neonatal
conjunctivitis. He turned to whatever employment he could find as a
singer and entertainer, often playing in the streets. By studying the
records of country blues players like Blind Blake and live performances
by Gary Davis, Allen became an accomplished guitarist, playing on street
corners and at house parties in Winston-Salem, North Carolina;
Danville, Virginia; and then Durham, North Carolina. In Durham, playing
around the tobacco warehouses, he developed a local following, which
included the guitarists Floyd Council and Richard Trice, the harmonica
player Saunders Terrell (better known as Sonny Terry), and the washboard
player and guitarist George Washington.
"In 1935, James Baxter Long, a record store manager and talent scout in
Burlington, North Carolina, secured Allen a recording session with the
American Recording Company (ARC). Allen, Davis and Washington recorded
several tracks in New York City, including the traditional 'Rag, Mama,
Rag.' To promote the records, Long credited Allen as Blind Boy Fuller
and Washington as Bull City Red.
"Over the next five years Fuller recorded over 120 records, which were
released by several labels. His style of singing was rough and direct,
and his lyrics were explicit and uninhibited, drawing on every aspect of
his experience as an underprivileged, blind [black] man on the
streets—pawnshops, jailhouses, sickness, death—with an honesty that
lacked sentimentality.
"In 1938 Fuller, who was described as having a fiery temper, was
imprisoned for shooting a pistol at his wife, wounding her in the leg.
His imprisonment prevented him from performing in 'From Spirituals to
Swing,' a concert produced by John Hammond in New York City that year.
Sonny Terry performed in his place and was the beginning of Terry’s long
career in folk music. After Fuller was released from prison, he held
his last two recording sessions, in New York City in June 1940, but by
then he was increasingly physically weak, and much of the material did
not match the quality and energy of his earlier recordings.
"Fuller's repertoire included a number of popular double-entendre 'hokum'
songs, such as 'I Want Some of Your Pie,' 'Truckin’ My Blues Away' (the
origin of the phrase 'keep on truckin''), and 'Get Your Yas Yas Out'
(adapted as 'Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out' for the title of an album by the Rolling
Stones), and the autobiographical 'Big House Bound,' about his time in
prison. Much of his material was culled from traditional folk and blues
songs. He possessed a formidable fingerpicking guitar style. He played a
steel National resonator guitar. He was criticized by some as a
derivative musician, but his ability to fuse together elements of
traditional and contemporary songs and reformulate them in his own
performances attracted a broad audience, best remembered for his
up-tempo ragtime hits, including 'Step It Up and Go.' At the same time
he was capable of deeper material, such as, his versions of 'Lost Lover
Blues,' 'Rattlesnakin’ Daddy' and 'Mamie.' Much of his repertoire and
style is kept alive by other Piedmont artists to this day.
"Fuller died at his home in Durham, North Carolina, on February 13, 1941 (aged, maybe, 33 or 36)." (Biography by Juan Alejandro Forrest de Sloper. From his Book of Days Tales blog. See here.)
1. Baby, I Don't Have To Worry
2. I'm A Rattlesnakin' Daddy
3. I'm Climbin' On Top Of The Hill
4. Ain't It A Cryin' Shame
5. Looking For My Woman
6. Rag, Mama, Rag
7. Rag, Mama, Rag
8. Baby, You Gotta Change Your Mind
9. Evil Hearted Woman
10. My Brownskin Sugar Plum
11. Somebody's Been Playing With That Thing
12. Log Cabin Blues
13. Log Cabin Blues
14. Homesick And Lonesome Blues
15. Walkin' My Troubles Away
16. Walkin' My Troubles Away
17. Black And Tan
18. Keep Away From My Woman
19. Keep Away From My Woman
20. Babe, You Got To Do Better
21. Big Bed Blues
22. Truckin' My Blues Away
23. She's Funny That Way
24. Cat Man Blues
