Jesse “Lone Cat” Fuller was born in Georgia in 1896. From age 9, he worked countless jobs to support himself. Through his childhood, he also taught himself how to play guitar and hand carve intricate wooden snakes. Jesse’s work ranged from stretching canvas at the carnival to running his own hot dog stand. Most often though, Jesse could be found either working on the railroad or playing his own music on street corners.

Traveling the country by rail was a primary means of transport for Jesse, and these experiences ultimately lead to his writing several songs with a railroad theme. Part inventor, part musician, he built several of his own instruments in his teens, including a mouth harp and a crude guitar. Over time, Jesse found great satisfaction in being a one man band, and thus rigged instruments for his own accompaniment. While picking on a 12 string guitar, he would simultaneously play a harmonica and a kazoo mounted with a microphone to a rack. He used his feet to create a rhythm section. With his left foot, he played either a cymbal or a rubber stick assembled to glide across a washboard. With a shoeless right foot, Jesse played an instrument of his own ingenuity called a “fotdella” or “foot diller.” It was a six string upright wooden box that that sounded by striking piano-like padded hammers against the strings.

With a natural sense of creativity, resourcefulness, initiative, and musical talent, Jesse eventually became a major contributor to the 1960s folk blues revival in San Francisco. He was a musician, a composer, and an inventor who infused a signature sound into his original works and into the songs of others that he effortlessly covered. The most prolific musical period for Jesse was later in his life when he produced 7 albums after the age of 50 and prior to his passing in 1976.

With the book, Monkey and the Engineer, may children of a new era enjoy David Opie’s stunning illustrations inspired by a ‘Lone Cat’ classic. 

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