Blind Boy Fuller (1907?-1941). Born Fulton Allen in North Carolina, he was renamed Blind Boy Fuller by his manager, James Baxter Long, who wanted him to have as bluesy a moniker as possible. He was one of the main Piedmont artists of his era. One source said that he was blind from birth but he actually seems to have lost his sight in his mid-teens—no one is sure of the cause.
Long owned a record store and got Fuller signed to he ARC label. His earliest sides were recorded in New York in 1935 along with the accompaniment of a washboard player/guitarist/singer named George Washington. Long gave Washington, a partial albino from Durham, the moniker of Bull City Red—a name he kept to the end of his career. He was the only member of a great blues quartet that could see. The quartet consisted of Fuller, Red, guitarist Reverend Gary Davis and harpist Sonny Terry. Fuller recorded 120 sides in all for ARC leading up to 1940.
Known for his fiery temper, Fuller was jailed in 1938 for shooting his wife in the leg during an argument. He also played with another notable Piedmont artist Floyd Council. Fuller’s protégé was Brownie McGhee who later teamed up with Sonny Terry to form one of the most famous and enduring blues acts ever. Fuller died at the height of his popularity and so J. B. Long originally dubbed McGhee “Blind Boy Fuller No. 2” to continue to capitalize on Fuller’s posthumous popularity. A typical Piedmont bluesmen, Fuller played a lot of rags and raggy-flavored blues. He died of a kidney infection in 1941 at the age of 33.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGVShoAWp00
Nice hokum piece--What's That Smell Like Fish? Gee, I don't know. Bull City Red on washboard no doubt.