This Week's Show: April 15-18

Beale Street and Beyond:
Jug Band Music, the Blues --and All That Jazz!

Although the prominence of the the Memphis Jug Band, Cannon's Jug Stompers, and Jed Davenport's Beale Street Jug Band brings Memphis to mind when a lot of us think of jug band music, it appears that the first jug band actually appeared further north in another river town, Louiseville, Ky.   In fact, anecdotal tales have it that Gus Cannon, who had already recorded as "Banjo Joe" (backed by Blind Blake) decided to rig up a jug on a homemade rack so he could play it with his banjo and gather a couple of other musicians to play jug band music "like they did upriver".  Already, the use of a jug (or jugs) to cover a percussive bass line and the use of several instruments to provide texture and tone to the blues was opening up other musical possibilites in a rich and fertile time for musicians in the African American community.

Upriver, the Cy Anderson Jug Band had appeared just after the turn of the century on the streets of Louiseville and had quickly become quite popular, eventually playing riverboats, carnivals and at huge parties throughout the region.  One of it's members, Earl McDonald was a skilled promoter and by the time that a young violin player, Clifford Hayes got involved in 1914, McDonald had formed his own group and had booked dates in Chicago and New York.  By 1924 they were in the studio backing Sara Martin on ten cuts as "her Jug Band".  That same year Buford Threlkeld's Whistler and his Jug Band was also in the studio.

Cifford Hayes went on to form a number of his own groups.  A skilled composer and organizer he formed several groups for various recording sessions, including the Old Southern Jug Band, the Louiseville Jug Band, and the Dixieland Jug Blowers which drew in such artists as Johnny Dodds on clarinet (one of Louis Armstrong's Hot Five) and Earl Hines, who is often cited as one of the primary forces in the development of jazz, on the piano.  Needless to say, the repertoire of Clifford Hayes in that era ranged from a country blues to Dixieland.


So this week we'll take a tour through the blues as it intersected jazz and the popular music of the 1920's and 1930's, hearing from a number of these jug bands--and spending a bit of time with Ma Rainey, billed as "The Mother of the Blues", too. She had emerged from the minstrel show circuit and vaudeville to be the first black woman to record.  Wintering in New Orleans, she met King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Sydney Bechet, and Pops Foster, and her blues often was accompanied by a quartet or quintet of dixieland style musicians.  As the Jug Band craze peaked in the late 20's (even Chicago guitarist Tampa Red recorded with his own Jug Band in 1930), Ma Rainey recorded a number of cuts with Ma Rainey's Tub Washboard Band.  Like the rich music of the Jug Bands of the era, Rainey melded the rawness of the southern delta blues and folk instruments with the sophistication of professional musicians in a time that saw the blues and jazz, both uniquely American musical forms, merge and emerge into the world through the technology of the recording industry. 

We may catch up with it again in the 60's with Jim Kweshin's Jug Band before all is said and done this week.  Enjoy!!