BLIND BOY FULLER: COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS, VOL. 3 (1937)
1) Put You Back In The Jail;
2) Walking And Looking Blues; 3) Bulldog Blues; 4) Where My Woman Usta Lay; 5)
Working Man Blues; 6) Weeping Willow; 7) Corrine, What Make You Treat Me So; 8)
Stealing Bo-Hog; 9) Worried And Evil Man Blues; 10) Bulldog Blues; 11) Break Of
Day Blues; 12) Oh Zee Zas Rag; 13) Throw Your Ya Yas Back In Jail; 14) Snake
Woman Blues; 15) Mojo Hidin' Woman; 16) Steel Hearted Woman; 17) Ain't No
Gettin' Along; 18) Careless Love; 19) New Louise, Louise Blues; 20) Mistreater,
You're Going To Be Sorry; 21) Bye Bye Baby Blues; 22) Looking For My Woman No.
2.
Man, was Blind Boy Fuller ever in demand in
1937! This third disc in the series only barely manages to cover his output recorded
from July 12 and ending on December 15 that year — starting just as the
infamous recession of 1937 began rolling in and cutting down jobs, so that the
title of the first song on here, ʽPut You Back In The Jailʼ, looks a little too
close for comfort. And yet, apparently Fuller's singles were still selling
like hotcakes, despite sounding not a wee bit different from what he'd already
put out. (ʽPut You Back In The Jailʼ, while we're on the subject, was almost
immediately re-recorded as ʽThrow Your Ya Yas Back In Jailʼ).
The only peculiarity of these sessions is that
the three last tracks were recorded with legendary harmonica player Sonny Terry
(who had already played with Fuller earlier in a blues trio), giving the man a
chance to «reinvent» three older tunes in a flashier way than usual.
Unfortunately, Terry is given very little space to shine – two very brief
solos and some rhythm-accompanying lead lines that are rather poorly captured
by the mikes. Apparently, it had to be demonstrated very clearly just who was the boss in the studio.
Other than that, minor ear-catching highlights include
ʽOh Zee Zas Ragʼ (a new bit of fast ragtime, and it does not seem to have the exact same melody as ʽRag Mama Ragʼ!); and
the dirgey mood of ʽWeeping Willowʼ, for which he also seems to have mastered a
new chord or two (and then, just a few months later, duly re-recorded it as
ʽAin't No Gettin' Alongʼ — and Blind Boy Fuller was actually so lazy, unlike
most other re-recorders, he didn't even bother writing new lyrics for the
songs he re-recorded: he just took out a different line to use as the new
title). There is also a very good take on the traditional standard ʽCareless
Loveʼ, one of the «bluesiest» ones during that era (Lonnie Johnson, despite
being a far superior player to Fuller, did that one almost in crooner mode; and
Bessie is beyond competition in any case); and I suppose that Big Bill Broonzy
recorded ʽLouise, Louise Bluesʼ somewhat earlier than Blind Boy (otherwise, why
slap on a ʽNewʼ subtitle?), but I
like Blind Boy's purely acoustic version much better than Big Bill's, who
recorded it over one of his «hide-behind-the-piano» periods. Crisp, clean,
sharp, as perfect as simple, unassuming 12-bar blues ever gets. Well, supposedly
1937 was a good year for somebody
other than Uncle Joe over in Soviet Russia.
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