Letter from musician Chris Darrow published in a recent issue of Mojo:
Chris Solves the Mystery
Re your Mystery Man query in Mojo 180. When I first met Bob “Frizz” Fuller he was already a brilliant, 16-year-old songwriter. Frizz was a student of the arcane and the unusual in American music. Over the ensuing years we became very dear friends. In the early ’70s, Denny Bruce and I took Frizz into the studio and recorded him singing 10 of his classic tunes. He was playing an old upright piano, in an eclectic, honky tonk style.
Later, in the mid-’70s, Frizz signed with my publishing company, Indian Hill Music, and my partner, Randy Talmadge and I helped him place some songs. I recorded him again, later on, with such luminaries as David Lindley, John Ware, Frank Reckard, Randy Sterling and myself. Soon after, Walter Egan produced some sides on him, including the fabulous Surfing Ghost.
A short time after, David lindley and Jackson Browne did some tracks with Frizz featuring Russ Kunkel on drums. Sadly, none of these sessions has ever been released. Over the years his songs would be covered by a number of artists, such as Lindley, wold champion surfer Corky Carroll, Kaleidoscope, and myself. The only recording of Frizz Fuller was on Harvey Kubernik’s Voices of the Angels spoken word album in 1981, wherein he read a poem. Novelist Kem Nunn used Frizz and Robb Strandlund’s lyrics before each chapter in Unassigned Territory.
Frizz died as a result of lung complications a couple of years ago.
Chris Darrow, e-mail
Editor’s note: Chris Darrow the provider of several excellent solo albums, was a founding member of Kaleidoscope, hailed by Jimmy Page as “My favorite band of all-time.”
Bob “Frizz” Fuller 