Memphis Jug Band album cover, obverse, artwork by
R. Crumb
Memphis Jug Band album cover, reverse, artwork by
R. Crumb
The Memphis Jug Band was an American musical group in the late 1920s and early to mid 1930s.[1] 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. The band recorded almost a hundred titles.[2]
Between 1927 and 1934 various African-American musicians in the Memphis, Tennessee area grouped around singer, songwriter, guitarist, and harmonica player Will Shade (also known as Son Brimmer or Sun Brimmer). The personnel of this jug band varied from day to day, with Shade booking gigs and arranging recording sessions. The band functioned as a training ground for musicians who would go on to success with careers of their own.[3]
Members
Among the recorded members were (at various times) 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). Vocals were also provided by Hattie Hart, Memphis Minnie, Jennie Mae Clayton (Shade’s wife), and Minnie Wallace, with Charlie Burse often contributing beautiful harmony parts to Shade’s lead vocal lines. In the case of Memphis Minnie, the Memphis Blues Band accompanied her on two sides for Victor Records, recorded in 1930 when the band's career was "winding down".[4]
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, Casey Bill Weldon, Charlie Nickerson, Vol Stevens, Charlie Burse, “Poor Jab” Jones, and Will Shade, but actually performed with accompaniment by other Memphis Jug Band members.[5]
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.[6] By that time, their style of music was no longer in demand, and Will 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 1963 Will Shade recorded one last time with another Memphian, 79-year-old Gus Cannon, former leader of Cannon’s Jug Stompers, another popular jug band. They recorded the album Walk Right In, on Stax Records, a result of The Rooftop Singers having made Cannon's "Walk Right In" into a number one single.[7] Will Shade on jug and Milton Roby on washboard perform a series of thirteen traditional songs, plus Cannon's great hit "Walk Right In," including "Narration," "Kill It," "Salty Dog," "Going Around," "The Mountain," "Ol' Hen", "Gonna Raise A Ruckus Tonight," "Ain't Gonna Rain No More," "Boll-Weevil," "Come On Down To My House," "Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor," "Get Up In The Morning Soon," and "Crawdad Hole." The album is almost an audio documentary tour through different corners of Cannon's life and career that, ideally, might've run to several volumes.[8]
Sound
The Memphis Jug Band has been described as having a remarkable sound due in part to the unusual instruments. Although most songs included a rhythm guitar and either a jug, a kazoo or a harmonica as a lead instrument or sometimes a mandolin or violin. The sound of the instruments was invariably a "raspy, buzzing sound" that was close to the musical aesthetic of Africa, the jug and kazoo representing the voices of animals or ancestral spirits.[3]
Selected discography
| Year |
Title |
Genre |
Label |
| 2007 |
Memphis Jug Band: Double Album (Import) |
Ballad, Blues |
Airmail Japan |
|
| 2001 |
The Best of the Memphis Jug Band |
Ballad, Blues |
Yazoo |
|
Footnotes
- ^ Santelli, Robert. The Big Book of Blues, Penguin Books, page 334, (2001) - ISBN 0141001453
- ^ Weissman, Dick. Blues: The Basics, Routledge, page 51, (2005) - ISBN 0415970687
- ^ a b Oliver (ed.), Paul (1989). The Blackwell Guide to Recorded Blues. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publisher. p. 45. ISBN 0-631-18301-9.
- ^ Garon, Paul and Beth (1992). Woman With Guitar:Memphis Minnie's Blues. New York: Da Capo Press. p. 29. ISBN 0-306-80460-3.
- ^ Charters, Samuel Barclay. The Country Blues, Da Capo Press, page 125, (1995) - ISBN 0306800144
- ^ All Music: Song List for Memphis Jug Band
- ^ All Music: Gus Cannon
- ^ Vladimir, Bogdanov. All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide to the Blues, Backbeat Books, page 8, (2003) - ISBN 0879307366
References
- 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
