By Tony Attwood
On the recently released Bob Dylan collection there is San Francisco Bay Blues (Informal Recording, Minneapolis, MN, 1960)
There is also an entertaining recording by Peter Paul and Mary available on the internet, which hopefully will turn up if you click here and is really worth hearing if you have time to listen.
This is an interesting style of song, in my view. It was written in 1954 by Jesse Fuller – and I have particularly picked this song and this artist today because the general feeling is that Bob got the idea for the harmonica holder which was used in his earlier recordings and performances so extensively from Jesse Fuller.
Although Jesse Fuller came up through a poor background he is reported to have become friends with Douglas Fairbanks and worked as an extra on some movies such as East of Suez. But he only turned to music as a source of employment in the 1950s, starter as a busker, along with working on a shoe-shine stand, before finally focussing on his act as a one man band.
The general view is that Jesse and Bob met in Denver in 1959 and it was from Jesse that Bob gained the idea of playing harmonica and guitar together “San Francisco Bay Blues” was included on the album “Working on the Railroad”.
Later popularized by artists like Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Eric Clapton, and Paul McCartney.
But to stay with our main theme, if you search on Google for Jesse Fuller you should be able to find quite a few of his songs. There is also interesting information in Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcRJq82RRhD/
But really if you want to know about the music that influenced Bob in the early days you should have a listen to Jesse Fuller from this 1968 recording…
That is the music Bob was listening to before he produced his first album.