Jesse Fuller – Frisco Bound / Arhoolie CD-360

Description

CD 360

Jesse Fuller – vocals 12-string guitar harmonica kazoo and footdella.

Jesse Fuller (1896-1976) `The Lone Cat’ was a remarkably expressive singer and fine 12-string guitar player. A versatile entertainer Jesse usually performed as a `one man band’ and drew on most strands of his rich African-American folk tradition. Born and raised in Georgia he hoboed all over the country singing and working various jobs until he settled in Oakland Ca. His best known composition San Francisco Bay Blues is included in this collection along with some haunting slide guitar solos.

All of ARH LP 2009 plus several previously unissued cuts from that same studio session in 1955 plus several selections recorded at Cornell University in 1962.

1. Leavin’ Memphis Frisco Bound
2. Got A Date At Half Past Eight
3. Hump In My Back
4. Flavor In My Cream
5. Finger Twister
6. I’m Going To Sit Down At The Welcome Tab
6. Just Like A Ship On The Deep Blue Sea
7. Cincinnati Bules
8. Just A Closer Walk With Thee
9. Motherless Children
10. Amazing Grace
11. Hark From The Tomb
12. As Long As I Can Feel The Spirit
14. Together Let Us Live
15. Memphis Boogie
16. Footdella Stomp
17. Crazy About A Woman
18. 99 Years
19. Stranger’s Blues
20. Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home
21. Preacher Lowdown
22. San Francisco Bay Blues

REVIEWS

“Jesse `Lone Cat’ Fuller was a Bay Area folk & blues singer who died in 1976. In his long career he hoboed acted in movies sang on the street shined shoes and owned a hot dog stand at a movie studio. He’s best remembered though as the author of `San Francisco Bay Blues’ and for his unusual performance as a one-man band playing blues spirituals children’s songs railroad songs waltzes and jazz. He invented the ingenious `footdella’ to play bass set up washboards cymbals kazoos and harmonicas that along with his 12-string accompanied him in his one man show. All these are demonstrated on the reissue of 18 favorites plus four previously unreleased cuts from 1955 and six from 1962. It’s an historic album full of his fun music and unique style.”

(Phil Hanson — Victory Review)

“Armed with a veritable arsenal of instruments both conventional and bizarre Bay Area bluesman Jesse Fuller created a full multi-textured sound all by himself. In addition to his trusty guitar the late `Lone Cat’ also utilized a harmonica a kazoo and something his wife whimsically dubbed a `footdella’ a homemade foot-powered gizmo that added the illusion of a bass.

`Frisco Bound’ stems from two sessions held seven years apart. The first sixteen tracks were waxed in 1955 for the tiny Cavalier logo while the remaining six from a 1962 album on Harry Oster’s Folklyric imprint include his best-known song the poignant rag-derived `San Francisco Bay Blues.’

Introducing each selection with a brief spoken passage Fuller zips through `Leaving Memphis’ `Frisco Bound’ `Just Like A Ship On The Deep Blue Sea’ and even the raucous `Bill Bailey Won’t You Please Come Home’ with a goodtimey approach that’s instantly accessible. Like many country bluesmen Fuller was also conversant with gospel although his jolly kazoo and harmonica-driven concept of `Just A Closer Walk With Thee’ may have differed substantially from that of the church.

Fuller’s dazzling dexterity on the 12-string acoustic is brilliantly showcased on the flashy instrumental `Finger Twister’ but the introspective `Cincinnati Blues’ and `Stranger’s Blues’ prove Jesse Fuller was a unique blues talent.”

(Bill Dahl — Goldmine)

“Here is the amazing music of Jesse Fuller a uniquely creative artist and one of the last great folk singers to purvey the authentic soul of the post-reconstruction southits mills cotton gins and mining camps. Forced out on his own at an early age he invented his first instrument resembling a jews harp at age nine while tending cows on the outskirts of Atlanta for 10 cents a day. Jesse took the music he heard in work camps saloons in church and on the radio and made it his own fashioning his own instruments and playing them all at once. From outdoor singalongs at cooking fires in the Georgia backwoods to playing “concerts” on the railroad for hat money to critical and popular acclaim in the U.S. and Europe with a lot of real hard times in between Jesse Fuller became a self-made American musical genius. His one man band will make you want to stomp both your feet at once and blow the dust off the old kazoo.”

(WFMU Catalog)