Remastered 1935-1938

undefined

The Piedmont region covers North and South Carolina and upper Georgia. The name was given to the guitar style of local blues musicians. This style combined rhythmic thumb strokes on the bass strings with melodies picked with two or three fingers of the playing hand. This was aligned with chord- and riff-patterns formed with the chording hand. The style ranged from simple execution to complex formulations that sounded as if two musicians were playing. The first popular bluesman playing in the Piedmont style was Blind Blake, although his origins are unknown. He was followed by Buddy Moss, who had learned guitar from Barbecue Bob. Moss's chance at fame ended when he was jailed for killing his girlfriend. The man who replaced Moss had been born Fulton Allen in Wadesboro, NC, in July 1907, one of ten children. In the mid-1920s the family moved to Rockingham where Fulton met Cora Mae Martin, then thirteen. He married her a year later. He started to go blind. To raise money he began to sing outside factories and warehouses. The workers called him 'Blind Boy' Fulton, which was corrupted to Blind Boy Fuller. He moved north to Durham in 1929 because the city made provision for the blind and itinerant musicians. When I first run across him, Gary Davis said, he didn't know how to play but one piece and that was with a ... It was Davis's tuition that brought Allen up to the standard where a record company might spot his ability. James Long recalled finding Fuller: ... I saw this blind fellow, colored man, he had on a blanket-lined overall jumper. ... But I heard him sing - he could sing. Anyway, I told him, 'I'm down here at the United Dollar Store. Come by and see me.' In mid-July 1935, Long and Fuller set off for ARC in New York. Nervous when he entered the studio, Fuller cut three songs, including I'm Climbing On Top Of The Hill, with a second guitar, probably Gary Davis. He made another two cuts the following day. He would return regularly to the studio.