Bull City Red

Bull City Red (born George Washington, February 19, 1917 – October 1958) was an American Piedmont blues guitarist, singer, and predominantly washboard player, most closely associated with Blind Boy Fuller and the Reverend Gary Davis. Little is known of his life outside of his recording career.

Biography Washington was born in Indiantown, South Carolina, also the name of a popular song written by Joe McCoy and first recorded in 1936 by the Harlem Hamfats. Red and Fuller recorded their own version of the song, titled "New Oh Red!", in 1937. Although he was just good enough as a guitarist to imitate Fuller, with whom he frequently played, he was a talented washboard player and also sang.

Red was a street musician in Durham before becoming the sole sighted member of a band managed by the talent scout J. B. Long, which included at various times Fuller, Sonny Terry and Davis. In 1935, then a trio featuring Red, Davis, and Fuller, the band went to New York to enter the recording studio for the first time, As his collaborators were blind, Red signaled them by touch when the recording process was ready to end.

Red also recorded songs based on gospel music with Fuller, Terry, and Sonny Jones, under the name of Brother George and His Sanctified Singers. Between 1935 and 1939, he struck out on his own as well, recording solo with his own vocals, guitar and washboard.

In 1941, Red became involved with another band. In late 1940, he had introduced Brownie McGhee and his collaborator Jordan Webb to his manager, John Baxter Long, and also to Fuller and Terry. After Fuller's death, the group came together along with another washboard player, Robert Young, to record.

Red died in 1958, at an unknown location.