Blame It On Memphis

If the Mississippi Delta was the cradle of the blues, Memphis is where it got expelled from reform school. And it's where Leon Fullerton got his Hard Knox U diploma and went on to ace a thousand bar exams.

Here are some of the jam-friendly rockers and brooding ballads that made him a barroom legend - or at least a rumor - in his own time.

Songs on this page:

Blame It On Memphis
Flying Blind
Heat Lightning
Old Farts On Motorcycles
Raining All Around the World
Rhythm Man
She's So Good (She's Gone)
Somebody Else's Blues
The Best Song That I Ever Wrote
Southbound Santa

_______________________________________

1. Blame It On Memphis
copyright Leon Fullerton

Well, there's been times
that I been so far down
I woulda had to sprout wings and fly
just to get high enough to touch the ground.
And baby, I know
the wishes that you wish to tell,
but if wishes were water,
I'd be drier than the mouth of hell.
Well, you can blame it on Memphis,
doncha blame it on me,
they say I'm guilty as sin,
and there ain't no hope for me.
Yeah, you can blame it on Memphis,
doncha blame it on me,
because I'm guilty as sin
of the blues in the first degree.

Well, I was walking down Bourbon Street,
French Quarter at a quarter to four,
I was washing down whiskey neat,
like my middle name was Just One More.
Well, you could call her a close friend,
but there's no mistake that OD cologne,
I got a good nose for bad news,
and I'm better off on my own.
You could blame the Big Easy,
doncha blame it on me,
I like it low and greasy,
you know I get in naturally.
or you could blame it on Memphis,
doncha blame it on me,
I could be guilty as sin
of the blues in the first degree.

I was lost in the Mission,
or was the mission lost on me?
Buddy, can you spare a C-note?
I need a little do-re-mi.
I could sing for my supper,
or I could sing for free.
I could sing the blues, blues, blues
in the key of me.
Blame mean ol' Frisco,
doncha blame it on me.
Where'd that itty-bitty kiss go?
I'll regret it eventually.
Or you you could blame it on Memphis,
doncha blame it on me.
Because I'm guilty as sin
of the blues in the first degree.

A portable R&B tune. Fullerton has been blue in Memphis, New Orleans, San Francisco, and a hundred other rhinestones in the American tiara.

_______________________________________

2. Flying Blind
copyright Leon Fullerton

Flying 'neath the radar at a lazy hundred-ten,
scratch you later, Mister Gator, you can say you knew me when.
Hailstorm of gravel, cyclone of smoke,
half a mile of rubber and a mother of a toke.

Flying blind, trying to unwind,
flying blind to pacify my mind.

Thick as belching diesel, hot as Elmore's slide,
swift as killer canines when there's nowhere left to hide,
hard as sudden sidewalk when you take that final dive,
sharp as Occum's razor when he's through with all your jive,

Flying blind, delivered, sealed, and signed,
flying blind, transaction's been declined.

I flunked quantum physics 'cause I couldn't count to four,
I missed out on the jail break 'cause I couldn't find the door.
They ran me from the cat house 'cause you said you're through with me,
so I ran into the dog house 'cause they let me in for free.

Flying blind, don't mean to be unkind,
flying blind, still got you on my mind.

Written while he was married to Trilby Canasta. The marriage never really took, thanks, on his part, to drinking, doping, and walking on the wild side, and on hers, to quaint (and to Fullerton's mind, discredited) notions of proper husbandly deportment. Fullerton always considered poor driving and canceled credit card accounts requisites of righteously reckless cowboy living, but Trilby had other ideas. They weren't ideas Fullerton necessarily disagreed with, but he was constitutionally incapable of subscribing to them.

He wrote "Flying Blind" during their first separation.

_______________________________________

3. Heat Lightning
copyright Leon Fullerton

Hold on, something's wrong,
there's a fever in the air.
The sinner's got the power,
but the righteous folk don't care.
You can smell it on the corner:
armies whisper, babies cry.
There's a hot wind blowing 'round the world,
it's a tall and angry tide.
It's heat lightning, sure as I'm standing here,
flash flood, chain reaction, rain of fear.

It's a poison you can swallow,
'cause it's got such a sweet, sweet taste,
but you can bet your bottom dollar,
it'll lay the world to waste.
It ain't just superstition, no,
I've had that vision, too,
when the sky lights up at midnight
and the joker takes his due.
And it's heat lightning, looks like the joke's on you.
When there's fifty-two wild cards,
the suicide king will rule.

You ain't nothing but a beggar
all dressed up like a king,
just a slave for wages
that don't add up to a thing.
Well, I ain't gonna take it, no,
'cause I been took before,
and the one you took for leader
is just an undertaker's whore.
And it's heat lightning, time to draw the line,
kick out the clown, take back what's yours and mine.

Fullerton had a hard time dealing with his prairie co-religionists who filled their time talking about the races, nationalities, and political persuasions they wanted to bomb/hang/invade/electrocute/short-sheet while they were hanging around with their thumbs up their scriptures waiting for the Prince of Peace to return and ring twice. Leon's pacific disposition led him, at an early age, to break away from his parents' congregations and found the First Church of Latter Day Cowboys - what he called "the last brave bastion of disorganized religion."

_______________________________________

4. Old Farts On Motorcycles
copyright Leon Fullerton

Old farts on motorcycles,
old farts in roadside bars,
old farts playing young and restless,
old farts playing electric guitars.

You got a Harley tricked out like a '52 hawg,
you got a space with your name down at Dunkin' D.,
you got a mini-microphone you you can talk to your honey,
cruising down the highway like Marlon B.,
like Marlon B.

Old farts on motorcycles,
old farts in redneck bars,
old farts singing karaoke,
old farts playing electric guitars.

What's wrong with bowling and playing golf?
What's wrong with turning in by ten?
What's wrong with acting like someone's grandpa?
What's wrong with acting like your folks did then?
Like your folks did then.

Old farts on motorcycles,
old farts in strip-mall bars,
old farts playing fast and feckless.
old farts playing electric guitars.

You got fresh tats, you got a fresh goatee,
you got a fresh ring stuck up your nose.
I remember you when you were young and cautious,
Wouldna been caught dead wearing none of those,
none of those.

Old farts on motorcycles,
old farts in Hard Rock bars
old farts playing second adolescence,
old farts playing electric guitars.

Old farts playing electric guitars.
Old farts playing electric guitars.
Old farts playing electric guitars.
Old farts playing electric guitars.

Late in the twentieth century, the enfeebled Harley Davidson Corporation thundered back with a vengance. Fullerton became fully award of the hawg revival late one sunny Saturday morning as he threaded his way between a clot of zillion-cc behemoths to get to the door of a Dunkin' Donuts for his daily grind.

The bikes were contemporary retro - retro in that the same obsession with chrome, power, and suspension as the company had had in its glory years was reaffirmed, contemporary in their electric starters - no one was jumping up and down to kick-start a machine - and their lack of what Fullerton considered several non-negotiable touches: streamers and pinwheels on the handlebars and foxtails hung tastefully from the back fender. (A lone wolf himself, he was actually glad that the foxes were being been spared this time around, but the aesthetic discord was undeniable.)

The new bikes harkened back, Fullerton realized as he inspected the bikes more closely, neither to Marlon Brando's swaggering Electroglide era nor to Peter Fonda's lean, mean chopper era. They harkened only to a bleak, prefabricated present.

They had more storage space than a VW bus. Paniers, saddlebags, pouches, glove compartments, and consoles abounded. And stereos. And subwoofers. These babies could take an outlaw (or (suburban bad-ass simulacrum) the distance.

Except there weren't any outlaws. Just a bunch of grandpas and grandmas who, to Fullerton's mid-century way of thinking, should have been out on the links or home dousing the azaleas with Miracle Gro. Fullerton had had foul things to say, once upon a time, about weekend hippies. He suspected that these were, for all their pristine Wilson's House of Leather accoutrements (bikers he'd known in the sixties wore torn tee-shirts, grease-blackened denim, or Mexican vests and considered leather jackets pussy), a bunch of IT specialists and middle-school substitutes.

This led him to reflect on how sedentary he, himself, had become, giving music lessons in and around (mostly, he hated to admit, around) Detroit and gigging in local bars, hair white as any geriatric biker's, what was left of it, and guit riffs, if he did say so himself (and he did, at every opportunity, whether anyone was paying attention or not), as bad-ass as ever.

As he was telling the counter guy that he didn't want hazelnut or decaf or mocha or latte or extra room for half-and-half or jimmies, pralines, fresh nutmeg, or artisanal small-batch Belgian chocolate shavings, he was a grown man, for God's sake, it dawned on him that his era had died and a song had been born.

_______________________________________

5. Raining All Around the World
copyright Leon Fullerton

I said, "It's raining down hard,
but it won't last long,
unless I immortalize it
in my next hit song."
She said, "This rain ain't no metaphor,
it's just plain wet,
shows how dumb
you blues boys get."
It's blowing like a bastard,
fulminating like the gods,
it's freezing like the devil
forgot to count the odds,

and it's rain, rain, raining
all around the world,
and it's rain rain rain rain raining
all around the world,
and it's rain, rain, raining
all around the world,
and it's rain rain rain rain raining
all around the world.

Voices shall be shattered
by the madness of the storm,
I'd wear out another Roget's,
but it isn't proper form.
She said, "I only came to see you
to give you back your ring."
I said, "That's such a tired lyric,
give me something I can sing!"
So she threw it, but she missed,
so I knew she really cared.
If she ever pulls a trigger,
got no reason to be scared,

except it's rain, rain, raining
all around the world....

Fullerton's fourth wife, Helena Troy, was a fallen English major holed up in the Chicago office of a grimly over-extended music publishing concern. Until Fullerton, she'd mostly dated over-extended musicians and and over-extended music business people, and but her attraction a pagan cowpuncher fifteen years her senior was unusual. And sort of a kick.

She eventually realized what she should have know all along: that musicians were all pretty much the same in the dark - dreamers too distracted by the rhymes and melodies zinging around their skulls to be much use for anything profitable. But by the time she'd figured it out, it was too late: they were already married.

The trip to Vegas had been unforgettable, what she could remember of it, but when, six months after the Bellagio, she heard herself saying exactly the words she'd said to four men before Fullerton - "You love that guitar more than you love me" - she realized it was time to split.*

She didn't actually throw the ring at Fullerton - that was poetic license on his part: its fictional trajectory was an apt metaphor for the arc of their marriage. And if there was one thing marriage to Fullerton had taught her, it was the uselessness of metaphor.

__________
* A casualty of the twenty-first century creative writing pandemic, originality mattered inordinately to her. Had she known that an estimated 42 million lovers (almost all women, which would have really set her feathers afire) had said those same words way before they sprang to her Fullerton-entrancing lips.

_______________________________________

6. Rhythm Man
copyright Leon Fullerton

Let me tell you about the Rhythm Man,
if he can't do it, no one can.
His rhythm method's guaranteed
to give you everything you need.
Rhythm Man, guaranteed, of him I speak no jive.
Rhythm Man gets you on your feet.
If he don't,
you might
not be
alive.
Good God!

People talk the whole world round
when Rhythm Man comes to town.
Ask Pat the dog or Scat the cat,
Rhythm Man is where it's at.
Rhythm Man, is that your name?
Ain't I seen you before?
Rhythm Man's ace is up his sleeve,
his feet
don't even
touch
the floor.
Look at that!

Just a hip-shaking groove for boogalooing the night away. Fullerton's band the Mojokers could keep people on their feet for twenty minutes with this one. Delmont and Rafael had sampled a little too much Kentucky product that morning to really lock into it, but you get the gist.

_______________________________________

7. She's So Good (She's Gone)
copyright Leon Fullerton

I got a woman, she's so good to me,
I got a woman, sweet as she can be,
I got a woman, loves me naturally,
last time I seen here was in 1963.

Oh, baby, come on,
why you been gone so long?
Oh, baby, come on,
why you been gone so long?
I got me a woman,
she's so good she's gone.

Someday she's gonna write me a letter,
I look in the box every day.
We never fight about what channel
or who walks the dog today.

I got a woman....

I leave the front porch light on,
I leave the front door unlocked.
I been robbed one hundred and fourteen times,
them burglars never even knocked.

Oh, baby come on....

Yeah, I got me a woman, she's so good she's gone.

Another ode to his first wife, Annie, this was a big show-stopper when he was touring with Connie Stoga & the Westward Hos.

_______________________________________

8. Somebody Else's Blues
copyright Leon Fullerton

I got no bones to beef about,
good career, good crib, good car,
no need to feel so lonesome,
got my baby and my guitar.
But I'm dressed in desolation
from my hat down to my shoes,
Section Eight from Salvation Army,
wearing somebody else's blues.

Now, baby, can you dig it?
Is it happening to you?:
You've got the world to live for,
but you wish your life were through.
You wanna fast-forward to the credits
just to find out who played you -
DOA at the miscast party,
playing somebody else's blues.

Evil dreams recurring
like Old Fateful every night,
get feeling so distracted,
I'm losing all fight.
Like doing time for another man's crime,
no use to blame the screws,
doing life in the hole with no hope of parole
for somebody else's blues.

When Leon played "Somebody Else's Blues," it was always a choppy one-chord groove of the Mississippi hill country variety. But Del wanted to give this set some some dynamic variety, so he talked Raphael into turning a house rocker into a minimalist samba. In its Fullerton form, it was Leon's best-selling single, of which he boasted in his unfinished memoir: "It would've made the Billboard chart, if the chart went up to about six thousand."

Whatever. "Somebody Else's Blues" was, for Fullerton, something of a chronic depressive's manifesto. In the Jan Wenner interview, he said, "The blues: If you can't beat 'em, write 'em."

_______________________________________

9. The Best Song That I Ever Wrote (Shoulda Never Wrote for You)
copyright Leon Fullerton

Outdid myself when I wrote that song,
plumbed the deepest depths of me
to immortalize a passion
forever meant to be,
but I can't sing that song no more,
for the words are all untrue:
the best song that I ever wrote,
shoulda never wrote for you.

The melody came like magic,
the words came out like wine,
but the story came out different
than true love's grand design.
Here today and gone tomorrow,
guess you taught me a thing or two.
The best song that I ever wrote,
shoulda never wrote for you.

It ain't no laughing matter,
when a love so right goes wrong,
but I can take the jokes behind my back
when a jukebox plays that song.
It's knowing that your last embrace
was just a backhand toodle-oo:
the best song that I ever wrote,
shoulda never wrote for you.

The best song that I ever wrote
shoulda never wrote for you, no,

the best song that I ever wrote
shoulda never wrote for you!

Fullerton met psychologists Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary at Millbrook, Leary’s upstate New York mansion. While in a skewed state, their conversation turned to a discussion of Leary’s name, which Fullerton maintained was emblematic of an untrusting — and therefore untrustworthy — spirit. Alpert tape-recorded the conversation, and Harper's Magazine acquired a transcript in 2009.

“Go around saying you’re Leary, Timbo, folks’ll be leary of you. Change your name. Which would you rather have survive? Your name or your work? Which one is your legacy? Check your ego at the door, padre. This is deep dijereedoo-doo. Don’t let yourself drown it it.”

It was Alpert, however, who ultimately changed his name, embracing the wisdom of Fullerton’s advice as Leary would not.

Continuing on the topic of names and anonymity, Fullerton said, “You cats like to write stuff, right? Never, never, never put in a sweetheart’s name. Never. It’ll just piss off the next sweetheart. Guaranteed. If it ends bad enough, it’ll piss you off, too.

“Me, I made that mistake for the first and last time a couple years ago. I will never be able to play that song again, and it’s one of my best. Called ‘Alberta,’ after a swimmer worked at Sea World. Karpinsky. Met her at a bar in Opa-Locka. Should’ve named it ‘Bubbles.’ Or ‘Flipper.’ Or ‘To Whom It May Concern.’ Any damn thing. 'To whom it may concern, I love you stem to stern.' Now, that would've been immortality fodder.”

While Fullerton’s relationship with Alpert and Leary was cordial, it was hardly collegial. The Millbrook scene was ultimately of little interest to the songwriter. “Those dudes are shrinks,” Fullerton explained to Allen Ginsberg at a peace rally in 1971. “I’m a cowboy.”

_______________________________________

10. Southbound Santa
copyright Leon Fullerton

I been riding, riding,
riding the wrecking ball,
and the walls
come tumbling down.
I been riding, riding,
riding the wrecking ball,
and the walls
come tumbling down.

Well, you done run out,
and you slammed the door.
Been pacing so hard,
I wore a ditch in the floor.
I unplugged the tree
just like you unplugged me.
I sent your cheap trash back,
'cause you treat me like that,
gonna cut me a brand-new blue tattoo:
burn your name on my heart,
say: Merry Christmas to you.

Well, I'm the first to admit it:
You run away, that's a fact.
Run off with my heart -
who said that you could do that?
I sure can't change it,
you just had to arrange it.
You met a south-bound Santa
on the sleigh to Atlanta,
yeah, you pawned your soul,
but now you're getting your due,
'cause he's a cheap jelly-roll -
so Merry Christmas to you.

I been riding, riding....

Jeanette "Corky" Cowperthwaite walked out on Fullerton two days before Christmas, 1988. They were living in Pleasantville, New York, a reasonably quiet suburb if you're willing to discount the sporadic volubility of Leon and Corky. If, as Fullerton often said, he was as Jewish as he wanted to be, he was as Christian, too, and took a dim view of Corky's cruel timing: She knew how much he loved Christmas. Worse, he'd just dropped a prodigious wad of cash on presents for her.

She'd ridden away in the passenger seat of a Mercedes Benz piloted by a love-besotted arbitrager, Fullerton's unopened presents overflowing the back seat like dollars spewing from the pockets of a politician coming home from a K Street meet-and-greet. And though Fullerton had warned her that she was investing in junk bonds of the heart, Corky had spurned his counsel. She and her new boyfriend - Dudley? Dirk? Durwood? Dimbulb? - were married and divorced within the year and Dimbulb was in jail, stripped of assets, within months of that. That he was right about about Dimbulb's precarious financial situation was cold comfort. The IRS got it all, Corky nothing.

Fullerton changed the Mercedes into Santa's sleigh for artistic reasons, he said, but his daughter, Gwen, believes he might also have found the memory of $1,200 worth of Christmas presents rolling away in an $80,000 car that didn't belong to him so distasteful that he didn't want a song that reminded him of it every time he sang it.

_______________________________________

"You got to rock."

Elvin Bishop