Le g e n d s o f
Country Blues Guitar Vo l u m e T h r e e
Bl u e s U p T h e Co u n t r y featuring J o sh W h i t e J e ss e F u l le r F u r r y Le Le w i s J o h n J a ck ck s o n P in k A n d e r s on R e v. v. G a r y D a v i s R o b e r t P e t e W i l li li a m s E t h e l & G e o r g e M c Co Co y
LE G E N D S OF C O U N T R Y BLUES G UITAR ( BL U E S U P T H E C O U N T R Y) V OLUME T H R E E by Mark Hum phre phreyy Most accounts of the ‘blues revival’ point to Samuel B. Charters’s 1959 book, The Country Blues, Blues, as a pivotal work in focusing the then-growing interest in preWar blues sty sty les. In In it Char ters wrote: “The count r y bl ues were generally sung by men accompanying themselves on the guitar, with with a highl y developed interpl ay between between their singing and the guitar accomp animent... The country blues were an intense individual expression of the deepest strains of Negro music in the South.” Revisionist histori ans have sought sought t o discredit Charters Charters’s ’s pi onee oneerring study, one he admitted was flawed: “A further difficulty of a first study,” study,” he wrote, wrote, “ is that there will will be considerable sidera ble error.” Err ors aside, aside, however, however, Charters’ definition of country blues is still operative. Granted, we now know that m any of the great great exponents exponents of country blues lived and worked in primarily urban settings. Country, howeverr, is as muc h about where an ar howeve ar tist was from ( and thus perceived the world) as it is about where he or she wound up. Moreover, Moreover, it’ s a broad but useful useful sty listi c definition for a means of expression. Not all the important guitar-playing pre-W pre-War ar blues singers singers fit com fortably in a countr y blues niche (Lonnie Johnson is a glaring exception) . A nd while we think of countr y blues as a soloist’s soloist’s art, usually one employing acoustic guitar, most living African-A merican exponen exponents ts play amplifi ed in small com bos. The sense we have of country blues, like most generic labels, is im preci se and subject subject t o frequent exceptions. However, Charters’s definition hasn’t really been im proved on. It It remains usefu usefull for placing an im port ant corps of artists—such as the ones seen in this video— into a context. Without further caveats then, enjoy this varied sampling of “the deepest strains of Negro music of the South,” com m only called country blues blues.. 2
F U R R Y LE W I S
(1893-1981)
“He plays and sings even bett better er than he did thirty years ago, singing in the same sa me beautifully halting country style, but but he doesn’t doesn’t own a guitar, and he moves from one furnished room to another.” Thus did Chart ers describe the life of Furr y Lewis in Th e Coun tr y Blues. Charters had Blues. e r found Furry in Mem a W phis where the Sani m a h tation Department r u B had emp emp loyed him as y b street sweeper since o t o h 1922. Furr y had also also P enjoyed a career as blues singer, one which had produced twenty-three preWar recordings. Charters observed that Lewis’s early records “had a beautiful q uality of restraint and understateunderstatement.” Unlike such later rediscoveries as Son House and Mississippi John Hurt, however, Furry’s rediscovery did not initially occasion much stir. It was only in the 1970s that Furry, having outlived many of his contemporaries, enjoyed the belated status status of a ‘l iving legend.’ “ People here considered him t o be a celebrity,” celebrity,” David Evans report report ed from Memphis in a 19 81 Livi ng Blu es obituary. “Everyone knew that the Rolling Stones had insisted that Furr y be book ed on their Memp Memp his shows shows...that ...that Furr y had appeared on Johnny Carson’s Tonight show, that he had appeared in a Bur t Reynolds Reynolds movie mo vie ( (W W.W .W.. and th e Dixi Dixie e Dance Kings) ....that he was the subject of a Joni Mitchell song (“Furry Sings the Blues”), that he had a constant stream of visitors from all over the world, and that he had influenced countless numbers of younger musicians who had gone on to successful successful car ee eers rs in pop mu sic.” Walter ‘Furry’ Lewis came to Memphis with his par3
ents from Gre Greenwood, enwood, Mississ Mississipp ipp i as a boy of six. B oisterous and musically rich, turn- of-the-century Me Memp mp his would would host wild jug bands and the more genteel blues of W.C. Handy Ha ndy,, who Furr y cl aimed gave him his first real real guitar ( “ I kept it ‘bout some thirty odd years”). He started playing guitar, he told Margare Margarett McK ee and Fred Chisenhall Chisenhall (Beale Street Black & Blue: Life and Music on Black America’s Main Stre Stree et) , when he was about tw elve: “I “ I got a cigar box,” Furry recalled, “I cut a hole in the top, put a board and nail it on there. And I taken four nails, put wire on ‘em from a screen screen door for strings. strings. I couldn’ t play it, but I rapped the sides, sides, hootin’ and hol lerin' . I thought I was doin’ something you k now now.” .” Furry developed enough proficiency to substitute on occasion in W.C. W.C. Handy’s band and to work m edicine shows shows doing music and comedy. His friendship with the legendary Jim Jackson, one of the pioneers of Memphis blues, led to Furry’s first recordings in 1927. It was then he first recorded “Mr. Furr y’s Blues,” heard here here in a perfor manc e from some four decades later. He also made pre-War recordings of of “ Judge Boushe Boushe Blues” Blues” ( originally called “J udge Harsh Blues”) and “John Henry.” However, his version of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,” Cle an,” atypical of Furr y’s often-humorous pre-War pre-War material, m ay have been been learned after his rediscovery. The opening performance in this Vestapol video, “Judge Boushe,” is performed, appropriately enough, in Ves estapol tapol ( open D) tuning, D A D F# A D. Furr y’s penchant penchant for ‘clowning,’ evident in his overhand swipes at his guitar, followed him from the medicine show and served him well thr oughout his professional professional c aree areerr. When a heckl er at New York City’s Gaslight once berated Furry for “actin’ a fool,” he retorted: “You’re “You’re a bigger fool than me! I’m up on this stage actin’ a fool and gettin’ money and you’re the fool who paid to come see me.”
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J OHN J ACKSON ( 1924- )
s n i k n e J h t i e K y b o t o h P
It may be one of the greater ironies of the folk revival that the Rooftop Rooftop Singers inadvertentl y led to the discovery of John Jackson. Performing was a thing of the past for Jack son when, when, in 1 964, his children and their friends urged urged him to get out his guitar and and play “ Walk Right Right In,” the 1929 Cannon’s Jug Stompers song which the Rooftop Singers had taken to the top of the pop charts early in 1963 . “ They wanted to do this dance that Elvis Presley started,” Jackson expl expl ained to Elij ah Wald. Wald. The postm an heard heard t he music as he brought the day’s mail and infor m ed Jack son he was himself eager to learn how to play the popular song. Jack son obliged obliged by visiting the postm postm an at his night job at a gas station; station; Was ashington hington D.C. folk m usic enthusiast enthusiast Chuck Perdue happened to stop by the Fairfax, Virginia station for a fillup and was star star tled by the sounds of countr y blues. Perdue invited Jackson to join him at a Georgetown concert by John Hurt, whose recordings Jackson had grown up hearing. At a subsequent subsequent concer t by Mance Lipscomb, Jack son was was invited on stage stage to perform , and on that occasion Chris Strachwitz heard him and offered to record Jackson for Arhoolie. Since then the easygoing Virginian has recorded for both Rounder and Arhoolie, toured Eu5
rope, and become a m ainstay of the Eastern Eastern Se Seaboard aboard folk festival circuit. None of it might have happened if a passing postman hadn’t heard Jackson entertaining his children and and their friends (“ so they they c ould do a hula dance” dance” ) to “ Walk Right In.” Jack son was was born into a musical family in Woodville, Woodville, Rappahanock County, Virginia. His father played guitar, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, and homemade pennywhistles. His mother pl ayed sacred sacred songs on harm harm onica and accordion. His siblings were likewise musical, but Jackson’s most vivid ea early rly m us usical ical m emories are of “ a water water boy on a chain gang” called Happy who visited the family after becoming a trustee. “He played very much like Lonnie Johnson,” J ackson told Wald Wald ( Sing Ou t ! Vol. Vol. 3 9 # 1, May/ June/July 1994), “in open tuning and just regular tuning, and he did fingerpicking...And everybody who ever heard him sa said id they never heard heard anything lik e it.” Records, too, were a major i nfluence on Jack son, who began playing guitar when he was around twelve. “I think Blind Blake was one of my biggest influences,” Jackson told Chery l A . Brauner and Barr y Lee Pears Pearson on ( Living Blue Bluess # 63, 63 , January- Feb February ruary 19 85) . “ I just just loved his finge fingerpick rpick ing style.” Jack son ably ably demonstrates demonstrates that love in a 1970 performance recorded at the University of Washington of Blake’s sly 1927 recording, “That’ll Never Happen No More.” The piece called “Rag in C” deftly demonstrates the close connection betwee between n th e Southeaste Southeasterr n ‘ Piedmont style’ of ragtime blues and the white country style commo nly called Travis pic ki ng. (Interestingly, J ackson states states that Travis’s style came from Blind Boy Fuller, and Travis once told this writer of his admiration for Fuller’s recordings.) “ Mos Mostt people would call m e more of a songster,” songster,” says the multi-talented Jackson, “‘cause I just don’t only play blues;; I play a li ttle bit of eve blues everr ything.” Though he loved loved to play country house parties and ‘square dances’ in his youth, a violent fracas in 1946 made Jackson renounce public per form ance for for the better better part of twenty years. years. Still, the emotional nourishment nourishment of music was always always with him . “ Whe When n you get hol d of a guitar and get to singing t he blues,” blues,” Jackson Jac kson told El iza izabeth beth Wiles Dean, “y ou get to forget about that terrible feeling or whatever it is you got upset 6
about...I’ve been been work ing in the fields and get get r eal uptight about something. T he minut e I could get hold o f a guitar, I could j ust feel feel m yself getting better. It was a great great relief. If I hadn’t been been able to play m usic I don’t k now if I would be living today or not, ‘cause I was just crazy about my guitar,, and when I really tar really go t down and out , I could sit up on a hill somewhere and and sing songs to my se self.” lf.”
J OS H W HITE (1914-1969)
r h a G e v a D y b o t o h P
Josh White’s performances here demonstrate what a consummately polished professional he was, a quality which has unfortunately sometim es bee been n held against against him . Countryy blues purists disparage White, claim ing he did littl e Countr worthwhile after his ‘Pinewood Tom’ recordings of the 193 0s. However, However, some of those sam same e purists would, if ho nestt wit h themselves, es themselves, be forced to admit t hat their first hint at the riches in the country blues tradition came via Josh White and recorded versions of performances like those on this video. If White was smoother than most country blues performers, it was with good reason. He had arrived in New York City f rom South Carolina in 19 32 and before the end of the year was appearing in a group called the Southernaires on NBC radio’s Harl em Fantasy . By 19 40, he was 7
on stage with Paul Robeson in a play called John Henry and singing singing at Cafe Society Society D owntown. He was cult ivati ng a white following even as he was challenging racism in songs about Southern inj ustice. He sang at at bot h the 194 1 and 1945 inaugurals of FDR, and found his way into several Hollywood films. It was a career quite unlike that of any other country blues artist. Yet it was unquestionably unquestionably a countr y bl ues back ground which White carri ed to New York York City i n 193 2. He was bor n in Greenville, South Carolina, where the legendary Willie Walk alker er and Gary Gary Davis had work ed together in a stringband prior t o White’s 1914 bi rt h. “ There see seem m s to have bee been n an undeniable and most distinctive ‘cell’ of musicians from this area,” area,” writes Bruce Bastin Bastin in Cry ing fo forr th e Carolines Carolines,, a study study of the Piedmont Piedmont blues and and its environm ent. By the time he was eight White was acting as lead boy to John Henry ‘ Man’ Ar nold, the first of a succession succession of blind singerguitarists for whom White beat the tambourine and collected tips. White’s apprenticeship as ‘lead boy’ took him from Florida to Chicago during the years 1922 – 1929. He watched and learned from the likes of Blind Joe Taggart, with whom White made his recording debut in 1928. “It wasn’t a life that I’d recommend to anyone,” White observed, se rved, “ but it taught m e my t rade rade.” .” White was only eighteen when he recorded his first blues in 1932 as Pinewood Tom. The son of a Baptist preacher,, White sim ultaneously r ecorded sacred songs preacher songs as Joshua White, ‘The Singing Christian.’ He began hinting at the social consciousness which brought him acclaim in the 1940 s in such songs songs as 193 6’ s “Sili cosis Is Is Killi ng Me,” Me,” though Pinewood Tom wasn’t above covering such popular double-entendre double-entendre blues blues as Kokom o A rnold’s “ Milk Cow Blues.” White perfected his cabaret perform ance sty sty le at New York ’s legendary Cafe Society Society Downtow n, where his good looks, open shirt and suavely insinuating manner drove women wild. (“A pre-Belafonte sex symbol” was Arnold Shaw’s description of him.) It was still a devastating act over twenty years later, as his performance here of “You Know Baby What I Want from You” illustrates. The first two songs here were perf perf orm ed for Swedish Swedish television audiences in 1962, while “Nobody Knows You When You’re 8
Down and Out,” in which White is joined by his daughter Carolyn, i s from Swe Swedish dish TV in 19 67. It’s easy easy t o see why, in the early 1940s, the nation’s First Lady made her way to Greenwich Village to see this phenomenon, and to believe that, t wenty y ears later later,, Preside President nt K enne ennedy dy told him how his records had inspired hi m when that President President was a college student in the Roosevelt era. ‘The Greenville Sheik She ik ,’ as White called him se self lf on an early r ecord, went a long way from ‘lead boy’ in his 55 years. years. A nd he opened opened a great many ears along the way, as his friend Lee Hays of the Weavers once observed: “Many a white middle-class blues singer wouldn’t know a blues if he tripped over one had it not been for Josh.”
R OBERT P E T E W ILLIAMS (1914-1980)
By contrast to the urbane White, Robert Pete Williams was as resolutely rural and introspective as any recorded blues ar ar tist. Discovered by folklorists Harry Oster and Richard Allen while serving a life sentence sentence for m urder at Angola State Penitentiary, the Lead n a m belly-like circum r e t a stances of Williams’s W k discovery and subse c i D quent parole attracted y b national attention: “A o t o h lifer for shooting and P killing a man, Williams has the tremendous drive and anguish that characterized Time reported. the fabled Leadbelly,” Leadbelly,” Time reported. What Williams lack ed, however, was a “Goodnight Irene” or “Midnight Special.” His music was relentlessly personal and often amounted to a diary of Williams’s inner inner life at the mom ent of a given recording. Oster wrote that onc e, when when he ask ask ed William s what he about to sing, “he scratched his head and stam9
mered, ‘Wait till I sing it.”’ His lyrical spontaneity tended to spurn spur n conventions conventi ons of blues verse verse structur e and his jagged guitar accompaniments were as idiosyncratic as anything ever recorded in the blues idiom. Williams, who by accident or design may have tapped into an African pre-blues wellspring, was both dismissed as a primitive and hailed as a genius. Born into a large sharecroppers’ family in Zachary, Louisiana, Williams didn’t begin playing guitar till he was twenty, when he made one for himself out of copper wire and a cigar box. In time he acquired a real guitar and began enter enter taining at p art ies and fish fries. fries. “ They all used used to call m e Pee Peetie tie Wheatstraw,” Wheatstraw,” he told Peter Guralnick Guralnick , “ ‘cause I could holler pretty good and raise m y voi ce...” His career career as bluesman bluesman in t he Baton Rouge area was short- circ uited when his wife, jealous of the attention of adm iring wom en, torched Williams’ guitar. William s claimed he played a mor e conventional conventional blues style in his ‘Peetie Wheatstraw period,’ only developing his signature style somewhat later. “I changed my style when I see where I could find more notes on a guitar,” he explained to researcher David Evans. “If you’re going to pick a guitar...play from the box (body) on back down to the key ( tuners tuners), ), you see.” see.” A sked what what prom pted this stystylistic shift, William s replied: replied: “ The sound sound of the atmosphere, the weather changed my style. But I could hear, since me being an air-music man. The air came in with a different sound of music. Well, the atmosphere, when the wind’s blowing carries music along...I along...I don’t k now where it c omes from—it c ould com e from t he airplanes airplanes,, or the m oaning of autom obiles, but anyhow it leaves an air cur rent in the air, see. That gets in the wind, makes a sounding...and that sounding work s up to be a blues.” Williams took his air-m us usic ic to t he Newport Newport Folk Fes Festitival in 19 64 and, for the next next fift ee een n years, years, to m any campuses, coffeehouses, and festivals. “Undoubtedly Robert Pete is as as expl explorator orator y in i n his way as John Colt rane or Gerard Gerard Manley Hopkins,” wrote Peter Guralnick in Feel Like Going Home: Portraits in Blues & Rock ‘n Roll . “Robert Pete continually invents and reinvents a music which is free to the point of occasional anarchy, and listening to it can hardly be a passive experience.” experience.” 10
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Williams’ performance here of “Dear Old Mother of Mine,” a relative of the traditional ‘holy blues,’ “Motherless Children,” is a ‘knife piece.’ Williams’ slide playing tended to be somewhat more conventional than his other work,, and he followed the exampl e of such work such m aste asters rs as Blind Willie J ohnson in using the slide as an antiphonal ele elem m ent, effectively a second second vo ice. The lyr ics, however, however, show William s’ highly p ers ersonal onal sense sense of symm etr y and verse structure at p lay lay..
E T H E L A N D G E O R G E MCC O Y They were brother and sister, nephew and niece of Memphis Minnie. But it was another remarkable early blueswoman, Bessie Tucker, who was the inspiration for their perform ance of “Ever ything I Tell Tell You,” You,” which com bines Tucker’s “B lack Mary ” and “Penitentiar “Penitentiar y.” They were originally from Booneville near Tupelo, Mississippi, but were discovered in East St. Louis, where W.C. Handy reported hearing “shabby guitarists” play some embryonic blues back in i n 1892 . Big Joe Willi ams introduced introdu ced rese researcher archer Pete Welding to the McCoys in the mid-Sixties, and Welding recorded their sister Ruby McCoy singing this same song accompanied by Big Joe (“Black Mary,” Testament TCD 5012, The Sound of the Delta ) . “They were very nice people,” Welding recalls, “who grew up singing and playing. Their parents were musical; music was important in their family, and they carried this with them. When I met them they were just just playi ng for family and friends friends.” .” In adaddition to Welding, Gene Rosenthal of Adelphi Records recorded the McCoys and is the source of this wonderful snapshot of Mississippi-St. Louis blues leavened by the spirit of a legendary Texan, Bessie Tucker.
P IN K A NDERSON (1900-1974)
In rural A m erica, m edicine shows were one of the few few forms of entertainment available well into the twentieth century. They offered cure-all tonics (often heavily laced with alcohol), black- face comics, ribald ribald jok es es,, and music. Am ong the disparate disparate talents talents to perfor m in m edicine sho shows ws were silent film com ic Buster Keaton, countr y legends Roy 12
Acuf f, J im m ie Rodgers Rodgers,, and Uncle Dave Macon, Macon, and a host of bluesmen, including Pink Anderson. “On vacant lots in southern townships the medicine shows would set up their stages,” Paul Oliver wrote in Th e Story of the Blues. Blues. “A typica typicall ‘Southern gentleman’ in Stetson and goatee beard would introduce a team of perform ers ers;; a few girl ‘hoofers’ perhaps, or a jug band, or just a P young Negro with his h o t face nonetheless o b y ‘blacked up’ with D a burnt cork, ‘cutting v i d G the pigeon wing’ to a h the stop-time guitar r of his accompanist. The Doctor in the Stetson Ste tson would pro duce a bottle of mi racle tonic, one of the troup e would tak e a swig and be galvanize galvanized d into m aki ng a pass at the nearest woman as proof of its efficacy. The crowd would respond raucously and the bottles would star star t selling.” Pink Anderson spent most of his life entertaining in m edicine shows. Bor n Pink Pink ney Anderson An derson in Laurens, Laurens, South Carolina (also Gary Gary Davis’ bir thpl ace), he was was dancing for pennies on the streets of Spartanburg while still a boy. Accounts of the year he joined ‘Doctor’ W.R. Kerr’s medicine show vary from 1914 to 1918, but he entertained in medic ine shows well into t he late 1950s. In Cry ing for for the Carolines,, Bruce Bastin described Anderson’s activities: Carolines “His job was to ‘drag the streets,’ that is to say, draw a crowd by playing and joke-telling and slowly draw them back to the ‘Doctor,’ who would then begin his sales talk. He travelled througho ut the Piedmont Piedmont region from Virginia to South Georgia and oc casionally int into o Tennes Tennesse see e and AlaAl abama.” Anderson would buckdance as well as play and 13
sing on Doc Kerr’s medicine show, earning as much as $10 p er week, week, a princely sum at the tim e. When Anderson wasn’t traveling with Kerr he often worked with the legendary Blind Simmie Dooley. Gary Davis, who didn’t pass praise lightly, said of Dooley: “He was just just as good as any m an I ever ever heard pl aying a guitar, him and Willie Walker.” Walker.” Kip Ki p Lornell wrot e: “Pink “Pink and Simm ie hooked up right after World War I because, at the time, Simmie was in need of a ‘leader’ and Pink was available. Many of the songs songs that Pink Pink play ed were were learned from Blin Blind d Sim mi e, so so it would seem seem a li kely poss possibility ibility that the style of guitar playing...represents a style that was well-formed before World War I.” Supporting Lornell’s contention is Anderson’s Anders on’s performance in t his video video of “ Crow Jane,” als also o kno wn as “ Slidin’ D elta” and believed believed to be one of the primordial blues guitar pieces. Dooley and Anderson recorded four sides for Columbia in 192 8, an event event which l itt le changed their liv es at the tim e but which would occas occasion ion A nders nderson’s on’s 1962 redis rediscovcovery by Samuel Chart ers ( Dooley died in 1961 ) . He recorded again for Prestige Prestige Bluesvill Bluesvill e but a 196 4 strok e sadly sadly sidelined Anderson from playing the ‘blues revival’ circuit. However, Howeve r, he slowly r egaine egained d his ability to pl ay ay,, and thank fully this never-before-seen footage from his later years docum ents what Bastin has called “ The infectious, slight slight ly wistful yet mischievous style of Pink’s medicine-show songs...”
R E V . G A R Y D A V I S (1896-1972)
The power and the glory that was Gary Gary Davis is in full cry in this stunning stunning perform ance of “ Oh Glory How Happy I Am,” with Pete Seeger acting as enthusiastic chorus. It shows Davis’s commanding presence at its assured best, demonstrating why he was such a beloved and awe-inspiring figure during the 1960s folk revival. The extent extent of Davis’s influence at the time included covers of his material (“Samson and Delilah”) by such pop-folk stars as Peter, Paul & Mary and the adaptation of his guitar style by such disciples discip les as as Dave Van Van Ronk Ronk , Stefan Grossman, Grossman, J orm a Kaukonen, and Roy Bookbinder. “Rev. Davis was a competitor,” Stefa Stefan n Grossman Grossman wrot e in Re Rev. v. Gary Gary Davis: Blu es 14
Guitar. “ He always Guitar. “ always wanted to stay a few yard s ahead ahead of all his students. This he easily easily m anaged.” Born Bor n in Laurens County, County, South Carolina, Davi s recalled being raised raised “way down i n the countr y, so far you couldn ’t hear a train whistle blow unless it was a cloudy day.” Blinded in i nfancy, Davis developed developed an early early se sensitivit nsitivit y to the world of sound. “The first time I ever heard a guitar played,” he told Sam Sam uel Charters, “I thought it was a brass band coming through. I was a small kid and I asked my mother what was it and she said it was a guitar. I said, ‘Ain’t you going to get me one of those when I get large enough?”’ “I made my first guitar out of a tin can,” Davis told Grossman. Gros sman. “ I was a boy about ten years old. I drove m e a hole in each each end of a pie-pan, run m e up a stick t hrough there, that’s the way I made it.” A banjo was his first real instrum ent, and he was was soon soon acquiring his song song stock from sundry sources: “Candyman,” he recalled, came from a 1905 ‘carnival sho show w.’ By hi s teens teens,, Davis was already per form ing: “ I used used to play for white folks’ pic nics,” he told Grossman, Grossman, and, and, lik e many blind musicians of the era, he traveled incessantly. “ I was was playing from t own to town,” he recalle recalled. d. “ Anywhere! Playing on the streets then. I would get run off by the police more times than I can remember.” Around 1912 Davis teamed up with another legendary guitarist, Willie Walker, in a Greenville-based stringband. Over the next twenty years Davis moved throughout t he Carolinas, se settli ttli ng around 1931 in Dur ham, North Carolina, where he met Blind Boy Fuller (Fulton Allen) . Davis claimed Fuller “didn’t know how to play but one piece and that was with a knife” when they met. Carolina guitarist Willie Trice corroborated Davis’s influence on Fuller, who told him: “All us boys can play, Willie, but Gary is our daddy!” At the time of their meeting, Davis remembered, “I was a blues cat then.” However, by the time of his sole pre-War recording session in 1935, Davis was performing primarily sacred material. (Reissued on Yazoo 2011, Th The e Com Co m pl ete Earl Earlyy Re Record cordin in gs of of Rev. Rev. Gar Garyy Davi s. s.)) He moved to New York York City in 19 40, where he struggled: “ We weren’t weren’t allowed to play on the streets,” He recalled. “Sometimes 15
the police chased me...Also I had guitars stolen off me as fast as as I could get them .” But Davi s stubbor stubbornly nly p ers erservered, ervered, and in time word of his talent spread from the streets of Harlem to the city ’s folk enthusiasts. enthusiasts. Befriended Befriended by Brownie Br ownie McGhee, Davis’s performance at a 1950 Leadbelly Memorial Concert at Town Hall was a breakthrough. His first album was recorded or Stinson in 1954, and further recordings throughout the 1950s paved the way for Davis’s eager ea ger participation i n the folk r evival of the 1960s. Throughout his often-dif often-dif ficult li fe, Davis’s Davis’s imp lacable faith and pride in his remarkable talent sustained him. “I learned all by myself,” he told his student, Stefan Grossman. “My motto’s always been to bring out something somebody else hadn’t heard before. I always loved to do things different than anybody else did.”
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J ESSE F ULLER (1896-1976)
On the back sleeve of the 1958 album, Jesse Fuller: Jazz, Folk Songs, Spirituals & Blues (Good Time Jazz L12031), this announcement appears: “Jesse Fuller sings and accompanies himself himself in actual perfor mance on twelvestring guitar, harmonica, kazoo, cymbals & fotdella. No overdubbing, m ultip le recording, tape editing editing,, or other elecelectronic techniques have been used to create any of his sounds.” Fuller’s one-man-band appearances here bear 16
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witness to the tr uth in thi s disclaim disclaim er er.. Handling five instruments and singing were see seem m ingly no chore for F uller, who didn’t really begin cultivating his remarkable one-manband talent until he was well into his fifties. Born in J ones onesboro, boro, Georgia, Fuller spent his early early years in the country around Atlanta, where such men as Barbecue Bob (Robert Hicks) and Blind Willie McTell would record with twelve string guitars. However, we can only guess at the impact of the Atlanta twelve-string tradition on Fuller, who was already in Califor nia, where he got his first twelve-string, before any of the Atlantans recorded. Before leaving Georgia, however, Fuller picked up a lot of music. “The first music I ever heard,” he told Lester Koenig, “I used to make a bow like the Indians make a bow and arrow, put some wax on the strin strin g, put t he bow in my mouth and pick the string-sound string-sound like a jew’s jew’s harp.” He also als o heard track-l ining songs, songs, a banjo-pick ing brother-inlaw,, and “ some fellows law fellows that could really really play guitar” pick ing blues. By the time Fuller began riding the freights at about twenty, he was doing t hat him se self. lf. Fuller became adept adept at both pl aying for t ips and swingswinging onto the freights which brought him to California. “I could catch them trains runnin’ thirty miles an hour with my guitar strapped behind my back,” Fuller told Koenig. “Every time I’d hit a railroad division I’d go amongst the store people and play a song. There wasn’t any radios in 17
them days. They’d fill m y cap up.” Arriving in California around 1917, Fuller found varied employment in silent movie era Hollywood, none of it mu sical. Carving and selling selling w ooden snakes snakes was lucrat ive for awhile: “I’m a professional on wooden snakes,” Fuller proudly recalled. “I can make ‘em so they scare anybody, tongue lick ing out ...” Fuller shined stars’ stars’ shoes in a barber shop near the United Artists Studio and did some movie extra work him se self lf ( “ I was was the fellow fellow carry ing the balloons on my hea head d in The Thief of Baghdad ,” he said). He fondly recalled that dir ector Raoul Walsh Walsh helped him se sett up a hot dog stand inside the United Ar tists Studio. Studio. Memorabi lia of Fuller’s Hollywood days were with him for life: a framed picture of Fuller with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Sidney Grauman hung on t he wall of his Wes Westt Oak land hom e. Fuller’s Hollywood interlude was followed by decades of hard work: picking cotton in California’s Central Valley, work ing for t he Souther Southern n Pacifi Pacificc Railr Railroad oad and, during World World War II, II, welding in the shipyards of Oak land, his hom e since 192 9. Music was a sideline sideline at best best duri ng this tim e. But in 1951, having heard about musicians and singers making “ lots of money” on records, records, the 55 year year-old -old Full er decided decided to join them. It wasn’t easy at first. “I tried to get some fellows to play with me,” he told Koenig, but that didn’t work out. “So,” Fuller recalled, “I thought, ‘I’m going to get me up a one-man band.’ I took me a whole week one tim e when when I wasn’t wasn’t doing any thing, and I made this thing I call the fotdella in my back room...I thought about doing something li ke that so I could have som som ething to go along with me and help me out instead of another fellow. I just took some masonite, heated some wood in hot water and rounded it off around a wheel. I learned that in the barrel factory where I used to work—that’s the way they do the staves...I staves ...I tried to use bass bass fiddle strings but they do n’t do so good, they stretch out of tune, so I use piano strings. My wife named it the Fotdella because I played it with my foot, lik e ‘foot diller.’ I’d been been playing harm onica and kazoo. kazoo. I added the cymbals later, welded it myself. I decided I’d get into it and might mak e me some money...I money...Iff I didn’t, I’d ju st be t he sam e ol d J esse. I wou w oull dn dn’’ t c r y ab abou outt i t .” Reviving busking skills learned around the time of World War One, Ful ler hit the streets of Oakl and and San 18
Francisco with his arresting one-m an band. His hunch that “I might get lucky” paid off. In 1955, a ten-inch album on the World Song label (Folk Blues: Working On the Railroad w ith Jes Jessse Fu ll er) was released. released. One On e of it s songs songs was “San Francisco Bay Blues,” described by Tom Mazzolini as “a classic train blues put to sea.” It would become a standard of the 1960s folk revival and bring an unlikely celebrity to the gently anachronistic Fuller, whose nickname was ‘The Lone Cat.’ It seems somehow fitting that the only country bluesman to have sold hot dogs to silent mo vie stars would near the end of his life suppl suppl y m usic for The Great White Hope, Hope, a 1970 film about Jack Johnson, heavyweight hea vyweight cham pion of the world during the years years (190 815) a young Jesse Fuller was first hearing the Georgia country blues blues..
R ECORDING INFORMATION The footage presented in this video is some of the rarestt mat erial w e h ave ever rares ever di sco scovere vered. d. The perfor perfor man ce cess from fro m The University University Of Was Washi hi ngton w ere not not k now n to exist bu t Stefan Stefan Gross Grossman had a fee feeli ng t hat out-takes from sessions sessions recorded recorded b etw ee een n 1968-1972 sh sh oul d b e in storage sto rage somew somew here at th e Univ ersity. Betw een th e years of of 1993 199 3 and 199 1994 4 w ith the great great help of University University Of Was ashi hi ngton archiv ist Laurel Sercombe, Sercombe, th e material w as di scove covered red in l ong forgotten forgotten boxes boxes and ru sty fil m cans in a du sty corn er at th e Ethnomu sicology A rchiv e office offices. s. Fu rr y Lew is recorde recorded d May, 1968 at th e Uni vers versity ity Of Washington. John Jack so son n recorded recorded 1970 at the Univ ersity Of Washington. Robert Pete Williams recorded 1970 at the University Of Was Wash h in gton. Jesse Jes se Fu ll er recorded recorded A pril , 1968 at the Uni vers versity ity Of Washington. Josh White performing YOU KNOW BABY WHAT I WANT FROM FROM YOU and NUMBE NUMBER R 12 TRA TRA IN from Sw edish TV 1962; NOBODY KNOWS YOU WHEN YOU' RE DOWN A ND OUT from Sw edish TV 1967. Ethel & George McCoy recorded Memphis, 1969. Pink Anderson recorded in 1970 in North Carolina. Rev. Re v. Gary Davi s perform ance from Pete See Seeger's ger's Rainbow Ques Quest, t, 1969. 1969. 19
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Vestap ol 13037 FURRY LEWIS 1. Judge Boushe Blues JOHN JOH N JAC JACKS KSON 2. That Will Never Happen No More JOSH JOS H WHIT HITE E 3. You Know Baby What I Want 4. Number 12 Train ROBERT PETE WILLIAMS 5. Dear Old Mother Of Mine ETHEL & GEORGE MCCOY 6. Black Mary PINK ANDERSON 7. She Knows How To Stretch It 8. Ain't Nobody Home But Me FURRY LEWIS 9. Furry's Blues REV. GARY DAVIS 10. Oh Glory How Happy I Am JESSE FULLE LER R 11. Running Wild JOHN JOH N JAC JACKS KSON 12. Rag In C FURRY LEWIS 13. See That My Grave Is Kept Clean 14. John Henry PINK ANDERSON 15. Crow Jane 16. You Don't Know What The Lord Told Me JESSE FULLE LER R 17. The Woman I Had She Left Me JOSH JOS H WHIT HITE E 18. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out Much of the extremely extremely rare perform - ance footage p res resented ented in this video has never before been pub licly seen seen a n d d o c u m e n t s th th e d i v e r s i t y o f a m u s ic ic w h i c h w a s a s p e r so so n a l a s a fingerp rint yet as universal as the blu es itself. John John Jackson, Pink An - derson, Rev. Rev. Gary Davis and th e charism atic Josh Josh White m an ifest different aspects aspec ts of the rich Piedm Piedm ont ragtim e/ blues tradition. In Memp his, echoes of the M iss ississ issippi ippi Delta could be hea rd in the m usic of Furry Furry Lewis. While the del igh tfull y eccentric eccentric Jess Jesse e Full Full er an d the i ntrospective Robert Pete William s emb emb ody country blues which defies regional id entity. Running Time: Time: 60 m inutes • B/W and Color Front Photo Sylvester Weaver Weaver & Sara Sara Martin Courtesy of Kyana Blues Society Collection Back photos: Robert Pete Williams by Tom Copi & Rev. Gary Davis by Stefan Grossman Nationally distribut ed by Rounder Records, Records, One Camp Street, Cambridge, MA 02140 Representation to Music Stores by Mel Bay Publications ® 2001 Vestapol Productions A division of Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop Inc.
ISBN: 1-57940-919-9
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