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The Monkey And The Engineer (PDF)
The Monkey And The Engineer (WORD)
You can play along in the same key as the Grateful Dead recording, but I've abridged it for group play!
"The Monkey and the Engineer" is a folk-blues classic that may have been inspired by a real baboon named Jack that became a signalman’s assistant in South Africa when the man lost his legs in a train accident. He worked for years actually switching the tracks for his master. Here's that story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_(baboon)
Jesse Fuller (March 12, 1896 – January 29, 1976) was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues", which is also in our BUG song library. He was sent by his mother to live with foster parents when he was a young child, in a rural setting where he was badly mistreated. In the 1920s, he lived in southern California, where he operated a hot dog stand and was befriended by Douglas Fairbanks. Fuller worked briefly as a film extra in East of Suez (1922) and The Thief of Bagdad (1924). In 1929, he settled in Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, where he worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad for many years as a fireman and a gandy dancer. He married, and he and his wife, Gertrude, had a family. During World War II, he worked as a shipyard welder, but when the war ended, he found it increasingly difficult to secure employment. Around the early 1950s, Fuller began to consider the possibility of making a living as a musician. Up to this point, Fuller had never worked as a full-time professional musician, but he was an accomplished guitarist and he had carried his guitar with him and busked for money by passing the hat. He had a good memory for songs and had a large repertoire of crowd-pleasers in diverse styles, including country blues, work songs, ragtime and jazz standards, ballads, spirituals, and instrumentals. He began to compose songs, many of them based on his experiences on the railroads, and also reworked older pieces, playing them in his syncopated style. His one-man band act began when he had difficulty finding reliable musicians to work with: hence, he became known as "The Lone Cat". In 1958, at the age of 62, he recorded an album, released by Good Time Jazz Records. Fuller's instruments included 6-string guitar, 12-string guitar, harmonica, kazoo, cymbal (high-hat) and fotdella (an instrument he created himself). He could play several instruments simultaneously, particularly with the use of a headpiece to hold a harmonica, kazoo, and microphone. In addition, he would generally include at least one tap dance, soft-shoe, or buck and wing in his sets, accompanying himself on a 12-string guitar as he danced.