Get Your Yas Yas Out: The Essential Recordings of Blind Boy Fuller
Blind Boy Fuller packed a lot of music into his brief six-year stint as the grandest exponent of North Carolina Piedmont blues. A fixture on the streets of Durham, Fuller offered up an infectious mix of rags, blues, instrumentals, mountain-styled songs, and even a bit of pop. And while skirting from style to style, Fuller always dished up top-notch fret work on his steel-bodied guitar and sang with a warm gruffness. Along with other stellar collections on Columbia and Catfish, this Indigo disc qualifies as a fine starting place for neophytes. Even though it's more of a fine overview than necessarily an essential collection, Get Your Yas Yas Out still bristles with plenty of standouts like "Rattlesnakin' Daddy," "Step Up and Go," and "Lost Lover Blues." And helping out in the instrumental department are such regular Fuller cohorts as harp master Sonny Terry and washboard player Bull City Red -- fellow blues guitarist Blind Gary Davis also contributes some fine work. One of just many recent imports that are setting the standard for blues retrospectives.