Jug band
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of traditional and home-made instruments. These home-made instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making of sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, stovepipe and comb & tissue paper (kazoo). The term jug band is loosely used in referring to ensembles that also incorporate home-made instruments but that are more accurately called skiffle bands, spasm bands or juke (or jook) bands (see juke joint) because they are missing the required jug player.
In the early days of jug band music, guitar and mandolins were sometimes made from the necks of discarded guitars fastened to large gourds. The gourds were flattened on one side, with a sound-hole cut into the flat side, before drying. Banjos were sometimes made from a discarded guitar neck and a metal pie plate.
The eponymous jug is made by taking a jug (usually made of glass or stoneware) and buzzing the lips into its mouth from about an inch away. As with brass instruments, changes in pitch are controlled by altering lip tension, and an accomplished jug player could have a two octave range. The stovepipe (usually a section of tin pipe, 3" or 4" in diameter) is played in much the same manner, with the pipe rather than the jug being the resonating chamber. There is some similarity to the didgeridoo, but there is no contact between the stovepipe and the player's lips. Some jug and stovepipe players utilize throat vocalization along with lip buzzing, as with the didgeridoo.
The swooping sounds of the jug fill a musical role halfway between the trombone and sousaphone or tuba in Dixieland bands, playing mid- and lower-range harmonies in rhythm.
Early jug bands were typically made up of African American vaudeville and medicine show musicians. Beginning in the urban south, they played a mixture of Memphis blues (even before it was formally called the blues), ragtime, and Appalachian music. The history of jug bands is related to the development of the blues. W.C. Handy said that he learned blues style from street musicians, playing improvised instruments. The informal and energetic music of the jug bands also contributed to the development of rock and roll.
[edit] Original Jug Bands
The first jug bands to record were the Louisville and Birmingham jug bands. These bands played popular dance band jazz, using the jug as a novelty element. Vaudeville-blues singer Sara Martin and America's blue yodeler Jimmie Rodgers both employed these groups on their recordings.
The Memphis area jug bands were more firmly rooted in country blues and earlier African-American traditions. Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers and Will Shade's Memphis Jug Band,recorded the great songs that became the basis for the later jug band revival: "Stealin'", "Jug Band Music", "Whoa, Mule", "Minglewood Blues", "Walk Right In" and many others.
Other Memphis area bands were Jack Kelly and His South Memphis Jug Band, Jed Davenport's Beale Street Jug Band, and Noah Lewis's Jug Band. "Ma" Rainey's tub-jug band featured the first recordings of slide guitar performer Tampa Red, who later formed his own Hokum Jug Band. Big Bill Broonzy and Memphis Minnie cut a few sides each backed up by their own jug bands; Memphis Minnie also sang and played with the Memphis Jug Band.
The 1930's depression and the devastating effect of radio on record sales reduced the output of jug band music to a trickle. The last sides by Cannon and the Memphis Jug Band were from 1930 and 1934 respectively. Cannon and Will Shade were recorded again in 1956 by Sam Charters on a field trip for Folkways Records. The sound of the washboard and tub bass, however, lasted well into the 1940s as an integral part of the "Bluebird beat" in Chicago. Bukka White's "Fixin' to Die", recorded in Chicago in 1940, is driven by a syncopated washboard backup.
[edit] The Jug Band Revival
One of the first recordings of the 'folk era' jug band revival was by The Orange Blossom Jug Five, made in 1958 for the poorly-distributed Lyrichord label,"Skiffle in Stereo". It was also the first recording by New York folksinger Dave Van Ronk, and featured Sam Charters, author of 'The Country Blues',and his wife Ann as well as Lenny Kunstadt, co-owner of the Spivey record label. Another early recording group was Jolly Joe's Jug Band, led by record collector Joe Bussard, and released on his own Fonotone label-as 78 rpm records. Eventually these were collected on LP by the Piedmont label.
The Jim Kweskin Jug Band of Boston, who recorded for the Vanguard label featured the washtub bass and jug player, Fritz Richmond, who later played jug on Warren Zevon's "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead". The New York based Even Dozen Jug Band was the Elektra label's answer to the Kweskin band and featured (among others) Maria D'Amato (Muldaur), Joshua Rifkin, David Grisman, Stefan Grossman, and John Sebastian. D'Amato then moved to the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, and married guitarist Geoff Muldaur.
The musicians playing in jug music revival groups went on to form other bands. John Sebastian founded the pop music group The Lovin' Spoonful. Country Joe and the Fish came from The Instant Action Jug Band. Mungo Jerry, who had evolved from an earlier blues group Good Earth, were in effect a jug band on their first live performances and recordings, thanks to their use of jug (played by the group's banjo player Paul King, who left in 1972), and washboard, contributed by regular 'extra member' Joe Rush. Another group with jug band roots was the Grateful Dead: key personnel were together in Mother Mcree's Uptown Jug Champions before forming the Warlocks, which evolved into the Dead.
Pop-rock tributes to jug band music include "Willie and the Poor Boys" by Creedence Clearwater Revival and "Jug Band Music" by The Lovin' Spoonful. The 'Spoonful also mined the old songs: for instance, "Younger Girl" uses the melody of Gus Cannon's "Prison Wall Blues". Cannon's "Walk Right In" was a hit for the Rooftop Singers in the 1960s.
The success of "Walk Right In" brought Cannon himself back into the Stax Records studios in Memphis for his last recording, in 1963 at age 79. The album, called Walk Right In, features Cannon on banjo and old sidemen Will Shade on jug and Milton Roby on washboard. The album consists of a run through of a baker's dozen of his old hits with Cannon interjecting comments and telling stories about the song.
The children's Christmas special, Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, based on a book written by Lillian Hoban and Russell Hoban, features a jug band comprised of woodland-creature Muppets and a soundtrack composed by Paul Williams. The show first aired in 1977.
Jug bands have continued to exist and evolve to the present day. John Sebastian still leads the J-Band, which included not only musicians from the modern folk revival such as the late Fritz Richmond from the Kweskin band, but also Yank Rachell, mandolin player and jug band leader from the original era. Some bands remain faithful to the original roots, while others continually expand the jug band repertoire to include other folk music, popular music, and classical music forms, such as The Hobo Gobbelins, The Kitchen Syncopators and Sour Mash Hug Band. A young string band in Austin, Texas, calls itself The South Austin Jug Band though it has never had a jug player in its lineup. It is not related to the earlier Austin Jug Band which featured virtuoso jug player Jack Otis Moore and vocalists Danny Barton and Galen Barber.
There has been an Annual Battle of the Jug Bands in Minneapolis, Minnesota held since 1980. Over 20 jugbands compete for the "Coveted Holliwood Waffle Iron" trophy, including the Jook Savages, a jugband that predates Kweskin's band and is still together. The competition is held the Sunday after the Super Bowl.
The annual San Francisco Jug Band Festival is held in San Francisco, California each August and there is a JugFest gathering of jug bands each September in Sutter Creek, California. Both of these free, outdoor, festivals feature a wide variety of jug bands in an all-day format that gives each band plenty of time to stretch out and play a full set. An annual Jug Band Jubilee was launched in Louisville, Kentucky, the probable birthplace of jug band music, in October 2006.
[edit] External links
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