Born: Mar 31, 1921 in Tulsa, OK
Born in Oklahoma, Fulson replaced one Chester Burnett -- better known as Howlin' Wolf -- in the band of a regional bluesman named Texas Alexander around 1939. After the war, Fulson moved out to California and achieved enough success to put together a band of his own, one which included a certain "Ray Charles" for a period of time. He recorded for the first time around 1946, but a hot 1948 take of "3 O'Clock Blues" was his first taste of long-term success. Recording for the long-gone Swingtime label, he waxed a record I still like, a take of the moody and ambivalent "Lonely Christmas," a song that still slows people down at Christmas parties, fifty years later.
He was picked up by Chess' "Checker" label in 1954, and soon afterward had a giant hit in "Reconsider Baby," still covered by bands today. A followup, "I'm Glad You Reconsidered," is actually a little hotter record but failed to score as solidly -- the backup band is much more solid and the recording is clearer. But it didn't sell.
Fulson stayed on Chess until sometime in 1963. He had a couple of big records in California in the mid-1960s on the Kent label, started by the Bihari family, who also owned Modern Records. One big one, "Tramp," was covered later by Otis Redding. A guitar sound with more edge than T-Bone, less rasp than John Lee Hooker, a better singing voice than B.B. King in those days, Lowell Fulson still records today on Rounder Records and their label, Bullseye.
A few years ago he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame and was nominated for a Grammy a year ago for Best Traditional Blues Album. The most famous bluesman nobody ever heard of, I call him. Fulson's style influence so many who went on to greater success, but the master keeps on playing long after the others have retired or passed on.
So smooth, not flashy, yet sometimes he had that style that Sonny Boy had so well and that Doc "Mistabluesman" Quinn gives us today, the doomsayer, the bringer of bad news, the oracle to the seamy side but could do it in a happy way.
Here's an excerpt from Don Snowden's liner notes:
"....Fulson's musical upbringing was in the Southwestern blues school pioneered by T-Bone Walker, a tradition where the guitar periodically stepped out to solo in front of a rollicking piano and scaled-down big band horn section that carried healthy portions of the melodic load. Rather than the standard Mississippi to Chicago blues migration
pattern, Fulson hopped on the West Coast train that funneled Texas and Louisiana folk to California during World War II. That plugged him right into the West Coast jump blues style being formulated by the likes of Roy Milton, Roy Brown and Johnnie Otis - one that became the most popular sound among African-American audiences in the immediate post-war period."
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