Fulton Allen, better known as blues singer and guitarist Blind Boy Fuller, lost his vision totally in 1927 and relied on the occasional income from playing guitar as his only means of support. He listened carefully to phonograph records of popular African-American blues artists such as Big Bill Broonzy and drew from their resources, developing a technically distinctive Piedmont-style blues and his own style, characterized by the gentle, finger-picked guitar style of the East Coast. After spending a brief period in Danville, Va., Fuller settled in Durham in 1929. He became the most prolific of all East Coast blues recording artists, and his records sold in large quantities. By at least 1937 he was suffering from serious kidney trouble, but despite increasingly serious illness, he was still recording within eight months of his death.