Blind Boy Fuller

Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order 23 July 1935 – 19 June 1940

Vol. 2: 29th April 1936 to 12th July 1937

Featuring the recordings of:

Blind Boy Fuller, vocal / guitar. Blind Boy Fuller, vocal / guitar; Dipper Boy Council, guitar; Bull City Red, washboard on 4. Blind Boy Fuller, vocal / guitar; Bull City Red, washboard on 6, 7, 8, 9. Blind Boy Fuller, vocal / guitar; Dipper Boy Council, guitar added on 19; Bull City Red, washboard on 19. 

Genres: Blues, Country Blues, Carolina Blues, Piedmont Blues, Piedmont Guitar, Country Blues Guitar, Ragtime Guitar, National Guitar

Abridged from this album’s original booklet notes. Blind Boy Fuller’s 1936 sessions (mostly included in Vol. 1) yielded ten titles including Trucking My Blues Away (a remake of Tampa Red’s “What Is It That Tastes Like Gravy?” from 1929) and Mama Let Me Lay It On You (a version of Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe’s “Can I Do It For You?” from 1930). Both of these titles were popular enough to be issued on several of the ARC labels (with Trucking later reissued twice on Columbia) as well as being re-recorded in No. 2 incarnations at later sessions. Regardless of their genesis, both titles have been associated with Blind Boy Fuller ever since he recorded them and his versions have inspired a host of imitators. Blind Boy Fuller’s third group of sessions took place on February 8, 9 and 10, 1937 with Dipper Boy Council and Bull City Red present on guitar and washboard on some tracks. Bruce Bastin has noted that Fuller’s Been Your Dog uses the same melody as Bull City Red’s “Black Woman and Poison Blues” and that its guitar part is similar to Red’s “Mississippi River” both recorded in July 1935. Mamie was recalled by Willie Trice as the first song he learned in the mid-1920s so these two songs may offer evidence that Blind Boy Fuller was drawing from a common pool of local material. Untrue Blues was a reworking of the “Crow Jane” theme (the 1927 version by Julius Daniels on Victor 21065 has “Richmond Blues” – a song covered by Bull City Red at the July 1935 session – as its flip-side). Fuller was probably aware of this record as well as Josh White’s popular version (“Blood Red River” from 1933). In addition to this, Richard Trice recalled that Fuller carefully studied Carl Martin’s definitive version of “Crow Jane” from 1935. This should all serve to illustrate how much conscious reconstruction of recorded blues material took place in the group of musicians surrounding Blind Boy Fuller. The last title recorded at the February 1937 sessions was New Oh Red! with both Dipper Boy Council and Bull City Red added on this exuberant remake of the Harlem Hamfats’ hit of 1936 (itself a remake of their own “Oh, Red!” from earlier in that year). Blind Boy Fuller was, at this point in his career, a fully professional, seasoned recording artist whose records sold as well as any of the Chicago competition.

DOCD-5092