Leon's love child makes tracks
We've put in new vocal and bass tracks to all the mp3s on the virtual albums pages, thanks to singer and bassist Jasper Leon "Jazz" Jones, the son Leon Fullerton never knew he had.

Get the full Jazz Jones story (plus a song sampler of the trio's tunes compiled by Leon's granddaughter Mave) here.

Upcoming show:

> Saturday, August 20, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Steep Falls Farmers Market
Village Park Gazebo, corner of routes 11 and 113, Steep Falls, Maine
Yes, we have no bananas. Come hear what we have been picking!
Learn more at Steep Falls Farmers' Market.
Roots music from the heart of the heartland ~
Blues, country, mountain, surf, garage, Americana, swing, soul, and more!

Featuring:

  • Bob "Backbeat" Barton - drums
  • Charlie "Bop Till You Drop" Bernstein - guitar, vocals
  • Jeremy "Fickle Finger" Fink - keys, trumpette, vocals
  • Paul "Hepcat" Hunt - guitar, vocals
  • Jim "Nashville" Katsiaficas - guitar, vocals
  • Sue "Soul Survivor" Silvestri - bass, vocals
  • Waterford "Yes, Virginia" Slim - blues harp, vocals
Upcoming show:

The Maine Market
Bop while you shop!
Saturday, September 26
10 a.m. to noon
Riverbank Park, Main Street, Westbrook
1. Lariat of Love
copyright Leon Fullerton

Dedicated to the legacy, life, and times
of "Neon" Leon Fullerton -
cowboy, poet, troubadour, 
drunk, mystic, bum

The Fullertons
info at thefullertons dot net
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Missing and presumed immortal

Leon Fullerton was a poet, mystic, disk jocky, troubador, purveyor of fine peyote, ranch hand, musician, band leader, prospector, train-hopper, hitch-hiker, agitator, day laborer, tippler, and freeloader — in a word, a cowboy. Born during the Depression, he disappeared frequently and for extended periods throughout his life, and was last seen giving himself a midnight discharge from a Flagstaff hospital bed via the agency of a second story window, a 28-foot extention ladder, and a nurse’s aide with a weakness for old coots who know how to spin a tragic yarn.

As of this writing, he is, in the generous words of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, “missing and presumed immortal.”

The music on these pages

If so, it's a precarious form of immorality. Over a dozen albums and a handful of singles, all out of print, comprise Fullerton’s oeuvre. Because of a Gordeon knot of estate issues currently creeping their way through the courts thanks to a number of untidy community property disputes being proscuted competitively by several ex-wives, none of these recordings is likely to become accessible to the general public in the foreseeable. 

Spanning more than fifty years, they encompass a dazzling spectrum of American musical idioms - the folk, blues, country, western, R&B, swing, and jazz styles that permeated the many smoky corners of popular American music in the last century. That music is currently being revisited in The Leon Fullerton Collection, a series of compact disks currently in production by Maine-based tribute band the Fullertons, which carries on his musical legacy.

The recordings on this site represent the launch of a project anticipated to take several years to complete. The tunes were recorded by Fullerton's two nephews, Delmont Fullerton and Rafael Gunn, a.k.a. the Del-Rays. In order to satisfy the particulars of several standing court decrees, the Fullertons have no legal access to original Fullerton recordings but are - thanks to several interesting wormholes in the inter-spousal estate negotiations - free to base their creative output on Fullerton tunes as interpreted by Delmont and Rafael.

So what appear on this site are the raw, basement-recorded Del-Ray materials — the pallet from which the final recordings will be based. No drums, no bass, no other artists - just the materials the cousins had on hand during their narrow (one-month) recording window. Owing to such X-factors as ADHD and booze, the quality of these Del-Ray recordings ranges in quality from mediocre to ocre. Nonetheless, Fenderbender Record Company is confident that the Fullerton's final renderings will be a fitting tribute to a now-nearly-forgotten musical paragon.

Blame It On Memphis and Doublewide! revive a fine old crop of chicken-fried ballads and roadhouse rockers. Americanarama, Division Street, and Tunnel Vision are Americana. Cowgirl's Lullaby is sentimental country. Tales of the Enchanted Mesa is a one-step-beyond meditation. Mercury is acoustic jazz and blues. Lucky  13 (a song sampler), favorite selections from all the other collections, will give newcomers a glimpse of the wide range of material Fullerton created.

A different kind of tribute band

It is, without question, a tribute band. But don't expect look-alikes, act-alikes, or sound-alikes. The Fullertons' interpretation of Leon Fullerton’s music reflects only incedentally —  if that — the sound of Leon Fullerton. The rationale: Fullerton's style is better honored in the breech than the observance. 

The band's approach is likely to be exactly what Fullerton would want. Fullerton spent his life at war with lavish imitation, flawless tonalities, and elaborate production values. Fidelity and finesse would therefore fly in the face of what the band has come to call the Fullerton Way, captured succinctly in the chorus of “Guitar Highway”: Lay it down and play it all around. Beyond having a broad framework for each song, Fullerton took enormous latitude with how he presented his music. Years before the term jam band entered the vernacular, he was known (if not always appreciated) for extended digressions, both instrumental and verbal.

Says keyboardist and singer Frank “Flinch” Lynch: “Fullerton is the paintbox. We’re the artists. See this keyboard? It’s my paintbrush. What goes on the canvas is up to us.” 

Guitarist Al Fresco calls it going off the clock. “We’re not a time machine. We’re not a juke box. You can dig up most of his old LPs and even a lot of the singles if you’re willing to cruise the used vinyl shops or just go online. We’re making something new. We’re not imitators. We’re renovators. He’s our Jolly Roger, and we’re hoisting him high. We just love the guy.”

Says Fullertons bassist and singer Ann “Bad-ass” Berkowitz, “The dude was awesome, totally. He was a definitely a guitar guy first, but a multi-instrumentalist. Proficient on electric organ, open-front upright, harmonica, button box, bongos, whatever. Dude might play a song on his D-18 [Martin folk guitar] one night and on his Farfisa [electric organ] the next. Sampling? Overdubs? Midi? Rhythm tracks? Forget it. He wasn’t programming music. He was living it.”

There’s plenty of material to mine for the foreseeable. Drummer Pete “The Beat” Mauss says, “’Neon’ Leon wrote over a thousand songs. A lot are gone, and a lot are throw-aways, the bad stuff you have to write through to get to the good stuff. But that leaves many, many dozens of deeply cool tunes, and we’re looking forward to having fun with them for however long it takes.”

Bottom line: The Fullertons intend to keep things simple and soulful, determined simply to get them out and get on with subsequent albums — the lay-it-down-and-play-it-all-around philosophy. 

Booking, permissions, swag

For booking information, permission to record Fullerton songs, or swag, contact us at info at thefullertons dot net. 

Artists who care to cover any of Fullerton’s extensive catalog are invited, expected, and encouraged to do it their way. (Note Fullerton’s reference in “Next Time I’m In LA” to Frank Sinatra and Sid Vicious, who both sang “My Way” their way.)

As the band says, it’s the Fullerton Way.* 
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*We hope. Fullertons fiddle and sax player Gus West says, “We could be out on a burning limb here. What if he’s still alive? And he hears us? And he thinks we suck? The dude’s be old, but he’s big. Not someone you want to tangle up with.”
Leon and Alberta.
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"It don't mean a thang if it ain't got that twang." Leon Fullerton