Blind Boy Fuller

[frank64f]

Hi Michael
since you mentioned BBF in the capo thread, reminds me of something that has always puzzled me.

I have been listening to Blind Boy Fuller since about 1959, and love the sound of his National. I have over 100 tracks of his, yet
I can only think of one slide track, Homesick and Lonesome Blues. Do you know of any others?

This seems really odd, as he sounds pretty good at it. I realise that the older guys tended to exaggerate, but Gary Davis is reputed to have said that when he first knew Fuller, he only played with a knife. I would love to know why he gave it up.

Frank

[Michael Messer]

Hi Frank,

Mark Makin is the Blind Boy Fuller expert around here. Mark, over to you!

I am only guessing, but I wouldn't be surprized if BBF was trying to be sophisticated and that he saw knife guitar playing as quite primitive.

Shine On
Michael.

[Deleted]

Feb 26, 2009 16:02:24 GMT frank64f said:

I can only think of one slide track, Homesick and Lonesome Blues. Do you know of any others?

Hi Frank, BBF did record two more slide tunes in E tuning - "I Don't Care How Long" and "I'm A Stranger Here" - these both appear on vol. 5 of the 6-CD Document "Complete Blind Boy Fuller" set. He also recorded a non-slide tune ("Little Woman You're So Sweet") in this tuning, which appears on vol. 6.

[Michael Messer]

Thank you Zak. You're right, I remember those tunes now. Little Woman You're So Sweet is a great recording. I love Fuller's music, but have never studied it closely. I leave that to my good friends Mark Makin and Ari Eisinger.

Shine On
Michael.

[Deleted]

I'd like to recommend Ralph Willis to any fans of Blind Boy Fuller. His style was kind of a combination of Blind Boy Fuller and Buddy Moss. His recordings are available on the JSP box set "Shake That Thing". Really enjoyable stuff.

[frank64f]

Thanks Zak,
thats great info.
I do have the non -slide, Little Woman, You're So Sweet, but I don't have the other two. It appears the Document vol 5 is not available at the moment.
The only option at the moment seems to be the JSP 4 CD set vol 2. Trouble is, only one and a half CDs are by Fuller, and I already have most of the tracks. Don't see why they couldn't have made vol 1 a 5 CD set instead of 4.
Frank

[Deleted]

Frank, if you like, PM me your email address and I will send you mp3s of the two songs you want.

[blueshome]

Re the JSP Volume 2, I've just been listening to it - many of the non BBF tracks are great - Floyd Council and the Trice brothers played in the same style but were not copyists and great players in their own right, Virgil Childers is interesting for his minstrel show tunes, and Frank Edwards and Dennis McMillon are well worth hearing.

[Gerry C]

I'm a huge BBF fan, having been turned on to his music in the late 60s by the inimitable Wizz Jones. There is quite a lot of instructional material available from Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop, including a decent DVD by the afore-mentioned Ari Eisinger, who has really nailed Fuller's style.Unfortunately I've not come across any transcriptions of Fuller's slide tunes. Anyone interested in the whole East Coast-Piedmont style and the people who played it should get hold of Bruce Bastin's book, Red River Blues, or his earlier (and now o/p) Studio Vista book (remember them?) Crying for the Carolines. Both are well worth a read whilst you listen...

Cheerily,

Gerry C

[steadyrollinman]

Does anyone know for sure if he used fingerpicks. In the photos he appears not to. I can only hear skin on strings, no metal or plastic. Any views?


Chris

[Deleted]

I suspect he used a thumbpick and one fingerpick, like Rev. Gary Davis.

[Gerry C]

Yep, I'd agree. Even with strong fingers and big callouses, them there ol' Nationals needed whopping real hard to get that sound...

Cheerily,

Gerry C

[steadyrollinman]

Well, Son House played without picks, and hammered his Nationals pretty hard. Also Zak recently posted confirmation of the string guages fitted to Nationals, which I seem to recollect were 11's on top. Not much of a difference to light guage strings nowadays. Sound wise, fingers are warmer, picks sharper. His sound to me is quite warm. Having said that, I know that he and Rev Gary Davis played together so I guess its likely he would have used them. Hmm.??

[colinbrooks]

I'm sure Fuller used picks. It sounds to me as if many of those East coast players did. Somewhere I read an interview with Brownie McGhee where he talks about the problems he had learning to play with picks in the late 30's. He considered them necessary for good sound and volume.

So, if we know Brownie played with picks we should compare his Blind Boy Fuller number 2 records, on which he played Fuller's National, with a late Fuller record. Or, the Durham Historical Society could search under the floorboards of the Fuller house for squashed picks.

[Deleted]

Feb 28, 2009 20:37:17 GMT steadyrollinman said:

Sound wise, fingers are warmer, picks sharper. His sound to me is quite warm.

Keep in mind that the recording technology of the day captured a pretty narrow frequency range by today's standards. Also, the recording practices of that era did not include close-mic'ing the guitar. Besides, you can get a really warm fat tone out of a good steel bodied National using fingerpicks if you pick close to the neck.
I think the key to Fuller's bouncy rhythm is his use of a thumb & index technique and a thumbpick and a fingerpick on his index. Compare his tone to someone like Scrapper Blackwell, who played a steel bodied single cone National without picks, and you hear much more string snapping and a tone that is actually more strident because he has to attack the strings harder to be heard.

As for Son House...comparing his right hand technique to Fuller's isn't even apples vs oranges anymore, it is more like apples vs....motorcycle helmets...they're both vaguely spherical and the resemblance ends there. By the time Son House was using Nationals (60s) his right hand technique was very different from what it had been on his 1930 and '41-'42 recordings, where he used a conventional acoustic guitar and a picking technique that wasn't ravaged by delerium tremens . Son House had actually developed a neurological condition which gave him the shakes, I believe he had some kind of surgery to alleviate it done in the early 1970s.