3 April 1961 must have been a quietly epic day at Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. That was the day folk blues singer/guitarist Furry Lewis recorded material for two albums—Back on My Feet Again and Done Changed My Mind. Back on My Feet Again, recorded by Scott Moore (the guitarist on Elvis Presley‘s Sun Records), has now been beautifully reissued by Craft Recordings.
Originally released on Prestige Records, Back on My Feet Again gives curious listeners a chance to hear Lewis at the beginning of a career revival that would, oddly enough, eventually lead to an encounter with Joni Mitchell. At the height of her fame, Mitchell, amid the road trips that would inspire her Hejira album, found her way to the elder blues legend’s apartment door to hear him sing and play on 5 February 1976. Mitchell subsequently wrote a brilliant song, “Furry Sings the Blues”, about her experience. Lewis, incidentally, hated it.
Born sometime in the 1890s (there is confusion about this), Walter E. Lewis—the “Furry” nickname came from childhood friends—picked up the guitar early in life and made his way onto the medicine show circuit of the early 20th century. Lewis lost a leg attempting to jump onto a freight train in 1916. This accident ended Lewis’ hard days on the road, though he did travel to Chicago to record a handful of folk blues tunes in late 1927.
Two years later, Lewis recorded additional songs in Memphis. These records achieved some success, but he didn’t release any music again until 1959, when the husband-and-wife team of producers Samuel and Ann Charters recorded Lewis at his apartment. The resulting self-titled album was an early highlight of the folk blues revival.
It might not have the significance of Lewis’ 1920’s releases, but it is a fine showcase for his singing and guitar playing, both of which sound undiminished. The early recordings have the gravity of being recorded almost 100 years ago to recommend them as historical documents, but Back on My Feet Again has its own special ambience, as befits a record made at Sun Studios, home to the early seminal recordings of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins, among others.
If you have toured Sun Studios, the ambience of Back on My Feet Again will take you right back to the tiny room where it was recorded. This album is every bit as important as the ones those hillbilly cats recorded at Sun. While Lewis was a fine country blues singer, it is his guitar playing that continues to beguile listeners. Hearing the record, it’s hard to imagine how one musician is playing everything that is happening at any given moment.
Charters, a music historian and producer, offered a meticulous explanation of Lewis’ guitar-playing technique in the liner notes. Still, you’d have to be a serious musicologist to understand what he is describing. Fortunately, watching videos of Lewis can help listeners better understand how he sounds like he’s doing the work of two guitarists.
Lewis reprises two songs that he originally recorded in the 1920’s—”Big Chief Blues” and “John Henry”—though he likely was playing most of the other songs on the album decades before this recording. Songs like “I’m Going to Brownsville” and “Roberta” will make the influence of Furry Lewis on the likes of Led Zeppelin and the Grateful Dead, among others, crystal clear.
From today’s perspective, Charters’ liner notes might appear to paint a romanticized picture of the American South that Lewis and other early blues musicians inhabited. Whether Charters account reflects Lewis’ own experience is probably open to debate, but Lewis’ story is found in the grooves of Back on My Feet Again, and it’s a story Furry Lewis told exceptionally well on his own. It’s a story everybody ought to hear.