Jesse Fuller playing "San Francisco Bay Blues" in 1963.

 Now I know I have frequently posted Jesse playing San Francisco Bay Blues before a favourite song I associate with my brother who first introduced me but I didn’t think I had seen this precise clip before

Jesse Fuller playing "San Francisco Bay Blues" in 1963.

Jesse Fuller - “San Francisco Bay Blues” [Arhoolie Foundation]

 New additions to our digital archive: Dietrich Wawzyn’s documentaries on American blues and hillbilly music.

In 1963, Chris Strachwitz accompanied German filmmaker Dietrich Wawzyn on a trip throughout the United States to document American roots music. The results of this trip were short documentaries made for German television featuring American blues and country musicians. “50 Sterne in Musik: Blues” includes Willie B. Thomas, Mance Lipscomb, Black Ace Turner, Alexander Moore, Lightnin' Hopkins, Buster Pickens, Barbara Dane, Jesse Fuller, and Lowell Fulson. “50 Sterne in Musik: Hillbilly” includes J.E. Mainer and his Mountaineers, the Hodges Brothers, the Lewis Family, the Willis Brothers, the Goodtime Washboard Three, and Blind James Campbell and his Nashville Street Band. These documentaries are now available on archive.arhoolie.org.

In this clip, Jesse Fuller plays “San Francisco Bay Blues” on guitar, harmonica, kazoo, and fotdella (a string bass instrument played with a foot pedal–Fuller’s own invention). From “50 Sterne in Musik: Blues” (1963)

Arhoolie Foundation 

in memory of my brother Steve (who introduced me to Jesse and this a favourite song and partly why I wanted to go to San Franscisco) . . . so I DID!

For JohnnyC1959

'BLUE'

Johnny C, a fine photographer and fellow muso and blogger posted some shots of a few of his walks recently ( here  ) and they inspired his reflections on the colour blue and some references at the end of his post caused me to reflect myself on the colour . . . . . .so this is for him!

Johnny noted :
Other blues are available… 🙂

(i) Blue: (ii) Blue Remembered Hills: (iii) IKB 79: (iv) Kind Of Blue: (v) Sky Blue (something about football!)

Teasels… [Image © John Callaway 2020]

Go visit Johnny's wordpress page here Ideas & images from Portsmouth and beyond

so I thought I'd post a couple of blues of my own -

I met Derek Jarman at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford and he and his team filmed us upon his arrival to see and meet with the Deputy Director there, the wonderful Marco Livingstone, so it possible the archive of his films contains footage of yours truly! He was remarkable and super talented of course but I don't recall his visit resulting in a show but Marco would know better what happened there . . . . . . I watched Jarman's broadcast of a single still shot of the colour 'Blue' with his voice over and it seemed revolutionary to us all at the time. He is missed and the artworld is the poorer for his dying too early

I mentioned that Blue Remembered Hills as per Housman's famous lines from his 'A Shropshire Lad' drew me to think about the Dennis Potter play of that same name and a personal favourite with Helen Mirren, Janine Duvitski, Colin Welland and Michael Elphick with Colin Jeavons, John Bird and Robin Ellis cast as children and it evoked memories of my own childhood climbing trees and watching the world go by . . . . . . . my dad had moved his family down from Merseyside to the meadows of Oxfordshire in the early sixties when I was but a few years old and the countryside overwhelmed me with lots fascinating flora and fauna and spent an idyllic childhood playing in the meadow of Northern Oxford

Next . . . . . . 
Emily Barker (and her husband to be Lukas Drinkwater - here on bass) recorded this album 'Sweet Kind of Blue' dedicated to Sister Rosetta Tharpe and this is a great live version of a fine song . . . . .




one of my favourite Blues songs here by the master but written by JJ Cale (of course)


speaking of masters . . . . . . . . . Keb Mo




Can't have too many versions of this song . . . . . . . 


Bobby tells us about the blues . . . . . . 

it's all a bit random . . . . . . but enjoy . . . . . . 

. . . . .Blue Remembered Hills

UPDATE: and oddly by sheer coincidence Johnny posted this afternoon a set of pictures and notes on our shared connection to Oxford City as he and his other half came to do some genealogical research. 
Check his latest entry here: