Pioneers of Piedmont, Part 1
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Blind Blake, Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Boy Fuller
by Don Erickson
The style of music referred to as East Coast or Piedmont Blues
originated along the South Atlantic seaboard before spreading north to
New York. The style is characterized by the instrumental mastery of
guitar players who utilized intricate phrasing and complex
finger-picking techniques.
The man generally regarded as the creator main founding father of
Piedmont blues is Blind Blake. His influence spread by way of the eighty
or more songs he recorded for Paramount Records between 1926 and 1932.
His influence was also spread by fellow musicians who adopted his style
and became big stars themselves. Blind Boy Fuller, Rev. Blind Gary
Davis, Blind Willie McTell and Josh White were some of the most
prominent and influential. The duo of Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry
helped keep the Piedmont blues alive and well through the years.
The East Coast Piedmont style of blues incorporates broad strokes of
ragtime and jazz, leading to a swinging style of blues that also
influenced many folk and country artists, including the legendary
finger-picker Merle Travis.
Not much is known about Blind Blake's life. Most sources have him being
born as Arthur Phelps or Arthur Blake in Jacksonville, Florida in the
early 1890s. He may actually have been born in the Georgia South Sea
Islands as early as 1880. It does seem he spent most of his youth in or
near Atlanta, and settled in Chicago after traveling there to make his
first records. His first recorded side was, ironically enough,
"West Coast Blues." His prolific, but short career came to a
halt with the demise of Paramount Records in 1932. According to most
sources he died the following year, but it may have been as late as
1940. Where and how he died is also a mystery.
Blind Blake was inducted into the Blues Foundation's Hall of Fame in
1990. You can hear some of his best work on the album Ragtime
Guitar's Foremost Fingerpicker (Yazoo 1068). The Document label
chronicles his career on four volumes of material.
Ultimately, the most influential of the Piedmont artists may be the Rev.
Gary Davis. He enjoyed a long career that started as a teen in the
Laurens, South Carolina area and ended with a fatal heart attack enroute
to a concert on May 5, 1972 at the age of 76. He was born on April 30,
1896 and before he died, his gospel/blues hybrid had influenced artists
from Blind Boy Fuller to Taj Mahal, Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Ry Cooder
and Jorma Kaukonen. Davis brought together sacred and secular music the
way only Blind Willie Johnson and a handful of others were able to do
before him. Davis' honest, homespun quality made gospel and blues seem
the perfect partners.
By the late 1920s he had settled in Durham, North Carolina. While in
Durham, he met up with Blind Boy Fuller, who was born Fulton Allen on
July 10, 1907 in Wadesboro, North Carolina. The two traveled together to
New York in 1935 to record for the American Record Company. By 1940,
Fuller had recorded 135 songs. He learned guitar at an early age, but
lost his sight in the late '20s, which is when he turned to music as his
main income. Some of his recordings were solo efforts, but on many of
his best works he was accompanied by Rev. Gary Davis. Later, harmonica
player Sonny Terry also recorded with Fuller.
Even though Blind Blake may have been a more accomplished technician on
guitar, Fuller had a more full-bodied voice and some of his compositions
have become standards of the genre, especially "Step It Up and
Go" and "Truckin' My Blues Away."
Fuller died in 1941 at the age of 32 of blood poisoning caused by a
kidney ailment. Like with Blake, the Document label has documented
Fuller's career with a chronological series of albums. You can hear him
on Yazoo's Truckin' My Blues Away, among other albums.
Next month we will continue with Part 2 of the Pioneers of Piedmont
Blues.
Reprinted with permission from the November 1996 issue of the Blues Crier
