The Rough Guide to Blind Boy Fuller
The Rough Guide to Blind Boy Fuller (World Music Network, 2015)
Blues enthusiasts can dance happy to the coming spring or better yet The Rough Guide to Blind Boy Fuller on the World Music Network is set for release on March 30th. With Rough Guides to Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly and Robert Johnson, World Music Network unfolds the career of the Piedmont bluesman and guitarist Blind Boy Fuller.
Jam packed with everything from “Truckin’ My Blues Away” to “Weeping Willow” to “Baby You Gotta Change Your Mind,” The Rough Guide to Blind Boy Fuller is an excellent addition to the collection of the well-seasoned blues fan and those looking to dip a toe into the roots of American blues.
Turning to music as a way to make a living, often playing on the streets in the early years, Blind Boy Fuller would go on to record more than a 100 sides, record 10 solo performances and appeared on the Decca and ARC labels in his short 33 years. Armed with a ragtime style of guitar playing, some slyly naughty lyrics and expressive vocals, Mr. Fuller became a smash hit and one of the best-selling bluesmen of his day – a tall order for a man living a hard life filled fights, a jail stint and copious amounts of alcohol.
Opening with the bright 1937 version of “Truckin’ My Blues Away No. 2” fans get the sassy ragtime feel of the Piedmont blues full force. Moving through the deliciously soulful “Thousand Woman blues,” “Mama Let Me Lay It On You” and the stunning “Corrine What Makes You Treat Me So,” Mr. Fuller’s sharp guitar licks and expressive vocals prove the potency of Mr. Fuller’s brand of blues. The Rough Guide sports such tracks as a cheeky “Get Your Yas Yas Out,” the sweetly worked “Weeping Willow” and the gritty “Baby Quit Your Low Down Ways.”
Other goodies include the upbeat stunner “Baby You Gotta Change Your Mind,” the delta blues sounding “Homesick and Lonesome Blues” and “Bye Bye Baby Blues” which has some kick ass harmonica and “Walking My Troubles Away.” With all 25 tracks recorded between 1935 and 1940 it becomes clear Mr. Fuller’s prodigious talent wasn’t lost on the music business of the day.
The Rough Guide to Blind Boy Fuller lays down this bit of the American blues tradition and it’s a sheer delight.
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Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
