Johnny Fuller (April 20, 1929 – May 20, 1985) was an American West Coast and electric blues singer and guitarist.
Born in Edwards, Mississippi not far from Vicksburg, Johnny Fuller has lived there the same usual hard childhood that the other sharecroppers: no education, full work at the age of 9. He said he then started to play the guitar and sing under the influence of Country Music icons like Jimmie Rodgers, Gene Autry and later Honky Tonk singer Ernest Tubb.
After a brief stint in New Orleans, Johnny went during the war to the Bay Area, finding work on the shipyards of Vallejo. He said that it was there that he heard the real downhome blues for the first time, a deep Texas blues carried on the West Coast by the thousands of Texans who migrated in California during the war years.
It is in this very style that Johnny started to play and record, first three Gospel sides in 1948,on the Jaxyson label which credited him as Brother Johnny Fuller, the 19 year old wonder singer. He then he recorded for a number of independent record labels, with his distinctive singing and guitar playing sometimes those associated with Bob Geddins.
These included Heritage, Hollywood, Flair, Specialty, Aladdin, Imperial and Checker Records. Some of these recordings contained a batch of incredible deep blues waxed in 1954. Those marvelous sides with devastating arpeggios, vibrant electric guitar licks, dying vocals and bittersweet lyrics stand as masterpieces of the downhome West Coast blues. But at the same time, Fuller is also able to record pop ballads like You Got me whistling, rocking pieces that were almost rockabilly, like Haunted house that hits the Top 100 nationwide.
Fuller then drop his day job and leads his own band, touring the Southwestern States, recording constantly for label as prestigious as Specialty, Flair, Aladdin, Imperial or Checker numerous 45s that mix with equal ease blues (less and less frequently) with ballads, rock'n'roll numbers, doo wop, corny pop pieces. But this versatility has also his setback. During the mid-60's, Johnny Fuller is unable to gain the attention of the new mostly white and international public of the Blues Revival as well as the young African-Americans who wants Soul, a genre that Fuller tries to make a hand but with no success.
And in 1967, Johnny is forced to stop his musical career and work as an auto mechanic in the Bay Area, largely forgotten by the blues world. In 1973, thanks to Tom Mazzolini, he is rediscovered by a group of Australian fans and record a very good album for an Ossie label with Philip Walker and his band. This album certainly illustrated what Johnny was capable of achieving. Unfortunately, it didn’t do too much for Fuller who did not record anymore. However he performed sporadically on stage and appeared at the San Francisco Blues Festival in 1973 and 1977.
Fuller died of lung cancer in Oakland, California, in May 1985, at the age of 56.
(Edited from Gerard Herzhaft’s blog Blue Eye & Wikipedia)