Lowell Fulson was an American blues guitarist and songwriter. He was a co-founder of a musical group which included brother Martin Fulson and pianist Eldridge McCarthy that recorded on Bob Geddins’s Big Town label and Down Home labels.
Background
Ethnicity:
Fulson was of Cherokee ancestry through his father, but he also claimed Choctaw ancestry.
Lowell Fulson was born on March 31, 1921, on a Choctaw reservation in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was the son of Martin Fulson, a fiddler and Native American Indian.
Fulson was born into a musical family: his grandfather - whose last name was spelled “Fulsom” - was a hoedown violinist, his father played guitar, and his mother and aunts were singers, dancers, and guitarists.
Career
At age twelve Fulson taught himself to play the guitar and learned country-and-western songs. Later, he fell under the influence of recordings by Texas bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson and East coast stylist Blind Boy Fuller. Because performing in the church provided little remuneration, he played country balls, and in 1938 joined the string band of Dan Wright, a unit comprised of two guitars, two mandolins, three violins, and two banjos.
In 1939, Fulson became the guitar accompanist for blues singer Alger ‘Texas’ Alexander, a vocalist and occasional pianist who previously performed with guitarists Lonnie Johnson and Howling Wolf. While in the Navy from 1943 to 1945, he saw one of his major influences, the great Texas guitar player T-Bone Walker.
By 1948, Fulson had some of his own songs recorded. Fulson’s first two sides were ‘Crying Blues’ and ‘Miss Katie Lee Blues.’ Not long after, Fulson sent for his brother Martin and recorded duo-guitar sides of down-home blues. In 1948, Fulson recorded the hit 'Three O’clock in the Morning Blues' - a number which inspired B.B. King’s 1952 hit, 'Three O’clock Blues'.
In 1954, Fulson began recording with the label Chess, and its subsidiary, Checker. The standard those recorded set for slashing guitar, supremely animated singing, generally unobtrusive but propulsive and dynamic accompaniment, and outright overall expressiveness was in no apparent danger of eclipse by Fulson or the many peers who took due heed of his style. Several tributes testify to the lasting influence of Fulson’s music. In 1993, Fulson appeared on B.B. King’s Blues Summit LP, and in 1996 was paid tribute by guitarist Dike Robillard on the album Duke’s Blues.
Fulson died on March 6, 1999, of complications from kidney disease, diabetes, and congestive heart failure at Pacific Hospital in Long Beach, California.
Lowell Fulson was a superlative songwriter in the top rank of blues composers. Fulson was called “The most famous bluesman nobody ever heard of”. Fulson has been credited with influencing Bobby Bland, Ray Charles, Lloyd Glenn, B.B. King, Magic Sam, and A. K. Smith.
Since his early days as a string band musician and performer of acoustic down-home blues, Fulson - through the incorporation of the guitar influences of T- Bone Walker and the music of Louis Jordan - produced an instrumental style and original numbers that emerged as modem blues classics.
His most memorable and influential recordings include "3 O'Clock Blues" (now a blues standard); "Every Day I Have the Blues", written by Memphis Slim; "Lonesome Christmas"; "Reconsider Baby", recorded by Elvis Presley in 1960, by Eric Clapton in 1994 for his album From the Cradle, and by Joe Bonamassa; and "Tramp", co-written with Jimmy McCracklin and later covered by Otis Redding with Carla Thomas, ZZ Top (for the 2003 album Mescalero), Alex Chilton, and Tav Falco.
Fulson's creative achievements are confirmed by numerous awards named after W.C. Handy. His name is included in the symbolic Blues Hall of Fame.
Fulson was an active performer and recording artist. He was one of the few bluesmen who exhibited a loping, swinging guitar sound and a subtle approach rooted in the authentic school of post-war T-Bone Walker blues.
As a songwriter, Fulson’s compositions have inspired renditions by such musicians as B.B. King, Ray Charles, and Otis Redding, and continue to be performed in the repertoires of modem bluesmen. Elvis Presley, Carla Thomas, and Eric Clapton have also covered some of Fulson’s songs.
Quotes from others about the person
Fulson’s style influences so many who went on to greater success, but the master keeps on playing long after the others have retired or passed on.”
"Lowell has never stopped: He is still creative. A restless non-traditionalist, he keeps up with the times, yet never self-consciously panders to the latest trends." - Billy Vera
Connections
In 1939, Fulson married Adena but their marriage ended in 1949. Fulson married Minnie Lou, owner and operator of Minnie Lou’s Club in Richmond, California, in the early 1950s. Then, he was married to Sadie but she died. Fulson had five children - Noel, Lowell Jr., Richard, Edna, Yvonne.
