Down On The Corner

Review by J. Fogerty

The Duckee Market on 30th Street in Oakland was the cover of Willie and the Poorboys. I had a choice of either cropping the picture or leaving the name of the market in. It was a half a block from Fantasy's building. We walked out the door, half a block down the street, and took the picture. Technically, "Down on the Corner" had nothing to do with the Duckee Market. But the song, like the market, was vaguely urban, obviously multi-cultural, which is what America is and was. It worked out great. The market was Chinese, a good picture of what that song was about; semi-small town America, certainly urban, not out in the country. An interesting side bar occurred when our photographer, who had taken the cover of Bayou Country, had run out of film during "our big album cover shoot." Since they didn't have film in the Duckee Market, he took off in his car leaving us outside duuuuuh!playing our instruments. I remember having to give him the money for the film. As for the title, it was vaguely inspired by Winnie the Pooh, something I saw on a kid's record. After playing around with Winnie the Pooh, I came up with Willie and the Poor Boys.