{"id":1008,"date":"2016-05-06T07:00:05","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=1008"},"modified":"2022-02-04T10:45:06","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T15:45:06","slug":"san-francisco-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/san-francisco-bay\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Bay Blues (Jesse Fuller)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"San Francisco Bay Blues\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pcRmnEAtG0Y?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>From the opening shout of &#8220;San Francisco Bay BLUES!&#8221; I was a Jesse Fuller fan. I didn&#8217;t learn many of his songs, because I couldn&#8217;t do with them what he did with them, but my favorites <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-1010 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jesse-Fuller-sf-bay.jpg?resize=270%2C272&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Jesse Fuller sf bay\" width=\"270\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jesse-Fuller-sf-bay.jpg?w=270&amp;ssl=1 270w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Jesse-Fuller-sf-bay.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px\" \/>were always his pop and ragtime numbers, and I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/let-me-hold-you\/\">picked up a few<\/a> over the years, starting with this one, which became my showpiece, complete with harmonica and kazoo breaks. I didn&#8217;t play either instrument like him, but came up with perky solos that always got a good reception &#8212; I did it at a talent show in high school, along with &#8220;The Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me,&#8221; and also at the talent show that finished off a long day of conferencing at an international Trotskyist youth<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-2580 size-medium alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/London-Youth-Conference-poster.jpg?resize=234%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"234\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/London-Youth-Conference-poster.jpg?resize=234%2C300&amp;ssl=1 234w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/London-Youth-Conference-poster.jpg?w=250&amp;ssl=1 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 234px) 100vw, 234px\" \/> conference in London &#8212; I had briefly joined the Workers League, the US affiliate of the British Workers Revolutionary Party, which had split from the Socialist Workers Party in a schism led, in part and not coincidentally, by Dave and Terri Van Ronk. That was one of the largest crowds I&#8217;ve ever played for, and &#8220;San Francisco Bay&#8221; brought down the house and made me think I could maybe actually do this for a living.<\/p>\n<p>I stopped playing kazoo after a while, and don&#8217;t even play much harmonica anymore, but whenever I listen to Jesse Fuller I&#8217;m tempted to go the one man band route again, because he always sounds like he&#8217;s having so much fun.<\/p>\n<p>As for &#8220;San Francisco Bay Blues,&#8221; it became a folk revival standard largely due to Ramblin&#8217; Jack Elliott, who learned it from Fuller during a swing through the Bay Area and played it regularly &#8212; I&#8217;m pretty sure I learned the chords from the\u00a0<em>Young Folk Song Book<\/em>, which even had tablature to Elliott&#8217;s strummed<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1241 size-full alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/young-folk-song-book.jpg?resize=220%2C284&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"young-folk-song-book\" width=\"220\" height=\"284\" \/> guitar intro. Like &#8220;Sweet Home Chicago&#8221; on the blues scene, it was popular in part because its title city had romantic associations for a lot of people &#8212; thanks in part to Kerouac and the beats, San Francisco was a fabled haunt of Bohemia, and became the main West Coast branch of the folk-blues revival. If anyone I knew, from my leftist uncle to my favorite musicians, went out to the West Coast, it was pretty much taken for granted that they&#8217;d go to Berkeley or San Francisco, so the song had an added romantic appeal beyond its cheery melody and the neat way Fuller&#8217;s words fit together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the opening shout of &#8220;San Francisco Bay BLUES!&#8221; I was a Jesse Fuller fan. I didn&#8217;t learn many of his songs, because I couldn&#8217;t do with them what he did with them, but my favorites were always his pop and ragtime numbers, and I picked up a few over the years, starting with this &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/san-francisco-bay\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">San Francisco Bay Blues (Jesse Fuller)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - 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I had vaguely known Fuller's name, but that record bowled me over -- there was a verve and power to his singing and guitar work that\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Blind Boy Fuller LP","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Blind-Boy-Fuller-LP-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1026,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/blues-naughty-sweetie\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":2},"title":"Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"May 23, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"This is another song I picked up from the Greenbriar Boys' Ragged But Right album. As I've explained in previous posts, I'm not a huge bluegrass fan but loved that group. It was partly John Herald's voice, and the way Ralph Rinzler and Bob Yellin played mandolin and banjo, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/greenbriar-boys.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":132,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/railroad-bill\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":3},"title":"Railroad Bill (Ramblin&#8217; Jack Elliott)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"February 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"From Woody and Cisco, it was an easy and obvious step to Ramblin' Jack Elliott -- one of the most ubiquitous and overlooked influences on folk guitar players of the 1960s.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"ramblin jack lp","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/ramblin-jack-lp.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5427,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/freight-train-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":4},"title":"Freight Train Blues (Bob Dylan, mostly)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"October 26, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Continuing a spate of Dylan memories, as I wait for the movie... I learned this from Dylan's first album, which only included two songs he had fully composed, but had a bunch of songs he had transmuted in various ways. The notes said he'd learned this from Roy Acuff's record,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Bob-Dylan-LP-e1729798042438.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2007,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/brand-new-tennessee-waltz\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":5},"title":"Brand New Tennessee Waltz (Jesse Winchester)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"August 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I remember knowing in a vague sort of way that this was by Jesse Winchester, but I didn't know anything more about him and don't have any memory of hearing him sing it, or indeed of hearing anyone sing it. 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