Memphis Jug Band
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The Memphis Jug Band was an American musical group in the 1920s and 1930s. The band featured harmonicas, violins, mandolins, banjos, and guitars, backed by washboards, kazoo, and jugs blown to supply the bass; they played in a variety of musical styles.
Between 1927 and 1934 various African-American musicians in the Memphis, Tennessee area grouped around singer, song writer, guitarist, and harmonica player Will Shade (also known as Son Brimmer). The personnel of this jug band varied from day to day, with Shade booking gigs and arranging recording sessions.
[edit] Members
Among the recorded members were Will Shade (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Charlie Burse (pronounced Bursey) (guitar, mandolin, and vocals), Charlie Nickerson (piano and vocals), Charlie Pierce (violin), Charlie Polk (jug), Tewee Blackman (vocals, guitar), "Hambone" Lewis (jug), Jab Jones (jug), Johnny Hodges / Hardge (piano), Ben Ramey (vocals and kazoo), Casey Bill Weldon (guitar and vocals), Memphis Minnie (guitar and vocals), Vol Stevens (vocals, violin, and mandolin), Milton Robie (violin), Otto Gilmore / Gilmer (drums and woodblocks), and Robert Burse (drums).
In addition to the above, vocals were also provided by Hattie Hart, Memphis Minnie, and Jennie Clayton (Shade's wife), with Charlie Burse often contributing beautiful harmony parts to Shade's lead vocal lines.
The attributed names of the group led by Will Shade on various recording labels vary quite a bit, but recent scholarly consensus has led writers to compile all of these works under the over-arching rubric of The Memphis Jug Band. In addition to that name, alternative names found on record labels include The Picaninny Jug Band, Memphis Sanctified Singers, The Carolina Peanut Boys, The Dallas Jug Band, The Memphis Sheiks, The Jolly Jug Band and recordings credited to the individual performers Hattie Hart, Minnie Wallace, Will Weldon, Charlie Nickerson, Vol Stevens, Charlie Burse,"Poor Jab" Jones, and Will Shade but actually performed with accompaniment by other Memphis Jug Band members.
The Memphis Jug Band played wherever they could find engagements, and busked in local parks. They were popular among white as well as black audiences. Musically they were flexible, playing a mixture of ballads, dance tunes, knock-about novelty numbers, and blues. Some of their songs mention hoodoo magical beliefs, and some members also contributed to gospel recordings, either uncredited or as part of The Memphis Sanctified Singers. In total, they made more than eighty recordings, first for Victor Records, then - as The Picaninny Jug Band - for the Champion-Gennett label, and finally for OKeh Records. The Victor recordings were made in Memphis and Atlanta, Georgia between 1927 and 1930, the Champion-Gennetts in Richmond, Indiana in August, 1932, while the final sessions on Okeh were held in Chicago in November,1934. By that time, their style of music was no longer in demand, and Shade was no longer able to keep the musicians assembled as a group, although many of the individuals carried on working around Memphis until the 1940s.
In the 1960s Will Shade recorded one last time with another Memphian, Gus Cannon, the former leader of Cannon's Jug Stompers, another popular jug band.
[edit] Sources
Olsson, Bengt, liner notes from Memphis Jug Band: Double Album released on Yazoo Records, n.d., though the art work on the cover created for this release by R. Crumb is dated 1979
