Big Road Blues

In the few years they were popular on race records, over a dozen or so jugbands made scores of records in a variety of different lineups.  Paul Oliver noted that by “half-spitting, half-vocalizing into it a player could produce a fruity, resonant sound not dissimilar to that of a tuba.” Memphis boasted a number of important jugbands including Cannon’s Jug Stomper’s, the Memphis jug band and groups led by Jed Davenport, Jack Kelly and Noah Lewis. Louisville was another rich area that claimed bands such as the Dixieland Jug Blowers, Phillip’s Louisville Jug Band, the Kentucky Jug Band and groups fronted by Clifford Hayes, Earl McDonald and Whistler AKA Buford Threlkeld. The Louisville jug outfits were strongly jazz oriented. Other groups included the Birmingham Jug Band, the Cincinnati Jug Band, King David’s Jug Band, the duo of Daddy Stovepipe and Mississippi Sarah. The dominant repertoire of the groups was blues but they also performed common-stock tunes, rags, reels and jazz. There were also a few white groups that used jugs.

Dixieland Jug Blowers

The origins of jug bands can be traced to Louisville, Kentucky around the turn of the century. It was around the turn of the century when the Cy Anderson Jug Band first appeared on the streets of Louisville, becoming an immediate smash. Between 1900 and 1909 the band played riverboats, carnivals and parties using Louisville as their home base. It was Earl McDonald who took the reins from the Cy Anderson Jug Band and even took lessons from member B.D. Tite. McDonald formed his own band and proved himself a shrew promoter, headlining dates in New York and Chicago. Also based in Louisville was Clifford Hayes who took up the violin at an early age and joined Earl McDonald’s Louisville Jug Band in 1914. Both men backed singer Sara Martin on ten sides in 1924 listed as Sara Martin and Her Jug Band. The two men had a falling out and thereafter led separate bands. Among the bands Hayes worked with were the Dixieland Jug Blowers and the Old Southern Jug Band.  The Dixieland Jug Blowers were the most sophisticated of the jug bands even employing clarinetist Johnny Dodds on record. Hayes left jugband music for a spell, taking up alto sax in the 20’s but returned to the music and was still leading a jug band when he passed circa 1955.  Vocalist Ben Ferguson and John Harris both recorded with the Louisville Jug Band. Ferguson cut two sides for Victor in 1931 backed by the band while John Harris cut two sides for Victor in 1931 including one with the Louisville Jug Band. These performances featuring Hayes and McDonald were their final collaboration.

Whistler and His Jug Band was a long-lasting and popular group that recorded for several labels from the mid-’20s through the early ’30s, and influenced many of the jug bands that followed. The group was formed in 1915 in Louisville, KY by guitarist, vocalist and whistler Buford Threlkeld. The band first entered the recording studios in September 1924 when they traveled to Richmond, IN to cut several sides for the Gennett label. The second recording trip for Whistler & His Jug Band took them to St. Louis in April 1927. On this trip, the jug band recorded 10 songs for Okeh.  In June, 1931the band got to record in their hometown of Louisville

Memphis Jug Band 2-LP (Yazoo 1067)

The last of the Louisville bands to record was the Phillips Jug Band/Kentucky Jug Band a creation of saxophonist Hooks Tilford. He had previously played in brass bands and worked with Ma Rainey who he recorded with in 1925. The following year he formed his first jug band. He recorded three sessions in 1930 under the name the Phillips Jug Band and the Kentucky Jug Band.

Singer, guitarist and harmonica player Will Shade founded the Memphis Jug Band circa 1925/26 to play in the city’s parks, streets and taverns. The idea was to get together a band “something like the boys in Louisville.” When early in 1927 the Victor record company decided to send a field recording unit into the South to record blues, gospel and white country music, it struck gold in Memphis with the city’s pre-eminent jug band, led by Will Shade, also known as ‘Son Brimmer’. Highly respected A & R man Ralph Peer had visited Memphis some months earlier and had auditioned and been impressed by the Memphis Jug Band. His confidence was rewarded with very good sales of their first two records. They recorded more prolifically than any other jugband, cutting 80 odd sides between 1927-1934. They drew from a large pool of local talent with 19 musicians recorded under the band’s name. An early unrecorded incarnation supposedly included Frank Stokes and Furry Lewis. The bands popularity led them to also perform at political rallies, store openings and other civic affairs. They performed at  gigs at like the Chickasaw Country Club, the Hunt Polo Club and at conventions at the Peabody Hotel. They were also hired regularly by Edward H Crump, the local political boss, for private parties and by food stands and restaurants to attract people. They played on the back of trucks advertising Colonial Bread and Schlitz. By the late 30’s jugband music’s popularity ebbed but Shade was still working into the 1950’s and in the last decade of his life made a number of documentary recordings. Shade passed in 1966.

Two artists connected to the Memphis Jug Band were professional gambler Kaiser Clifton and vaudville veteran Minnie Wallace. Clifton cut four sides for Victor in 1930 backed by members of the Memphis Jug Band including Will Shade. Wallace also cut sides backed by members of the Memphis Jug Band including Will Shade in 1929 and 1935. She cut six sides in total plus several sides that were never issued.

Cannon’s Jug Stompers

With popularity of the Memphis Jug band a number of other jug bands had organized in Memphis, including Cannon’s Jug Stompers, Jed Davenport’s Beale Street Jug Band  and Jack Kelly’s Jug Band (later known as The South Memphis Jug Band). The city boasted at least eight jug bands by the end of the 20’s. Harmonica player and singer Jed Davenport is believed to be a medicine show entertainer who was active in Memphis in the 1920’s and 30’s.  He cut two solo sides in 1929 and six sides in 1930 with his Beale Street Jug Band. This was probably and principally a studio conceived recording group as it included; Joe McCoy, and musical (and for a time life) partner of Memphis Minnie and another singer/guitarist who had already recorded, Henry L. Castle, known as Too Tight Henry, Minnie herself was probably in there somewhere too, playing guitar.Also in 1930 Davenport cut two sides with a group called the Beale Street Rounders. Jack Kelly is believed to be from North Mississippi but spent most of his life in Memphis where he sang on the streets and worked with musicians like Frank Stokes, Dan Sane, Will Batts and later Little Buddy Doyle and Walter Horton. In 1933 he cut 14 sides by the South Memphis Jug Band which included Will Batts on violin, Dan Sane on guitar and D.M. Higgs on jug. He cut ten more sides in 1939 with Batts, and Little Son Joe. Kelly’s last known sides were made in 1952 with Walter Horton for the Sun label titled as by Jackie Boy & Little Walter.

Although they sold fewer records, in musical terms Cannon’s Jug Stompers rivaled the Memphis Jug Band. In the early years of the last century Gus Cannon traveled the South with medicine shows. In the late 1920’s, based in Memphis, he formed Cannon’s Jug Stompers. The band played in the streets and parks of Memphis or in outlying west Tennessee towns like Brownsville and Ripley. Cannon first recorded sides for Paramount with Blind Blake in 1927 before recording in 1928 with the Jug Stompers. The group made their final recordings in 1930. Cannon sang and played banjo and jug with the harmonica blower Noah Lewis playing a prime role and as well as singing on some numbers. In addition to recording with Cannon’s Jug Stomper’s, harmonica blower and singer Noah Lewis cut four solo sides in 1929, two in 1930 as Noah Lewis’s Jug Band and two more in 1930 with Sleepy John Estes. After his recording career, Cannon lived in obscurity for some 30 years until his composition “Walk Right In” was recorded in 1963 by the Rooftop Singers and was a hit. After that he did some further recording including the album Walk Right In in 1963 alongside Will Shade for the Stax label. Cannon passed in 1979.

Johnny Watson AKA Daddy Stovepipe was born in 1867 and was from Mobile, Alabama. He was a traveling musician who played harmonica, guitar and sang. He cut three solo sides in 1924, two in 1927, eight sides in 1931 including two with his wife Mississippi Sarah and a four song 1935 session again with his wife on two numbers. In later years he performed on Chicago’s Maxwell Street where he was last recorded in 1960. Those songs appeared on the album Blues From Maxwell Street that has not been issued on CD. He passed in 196

Stovepipe No. 1 was Sam Jones who played harmonica, guitar and stovepipe and likely was the common denominator in the Cincinnati Jug Band led by Walter Coleman and King David’s Jug Band. Possibly born in the 1880’s he spent his life in Cincinnati. He cut a dozen sides in 1924, with several unissued, plus a few sides in 1927. He recorded as a one-man band, with guitarist David Crockett and with King David’s Jug Band (also featuring Crockett) who cut six sides in 1930 and on the two instrumentals the Cincinnati Jug Band cut in 1929.

Of the lesser know artists on today’s program are the Birmingham Jug Band band who recorded 8 rough and ready sides on December 11, 1930. Jaybird Coleman was once though to be a member of the group but this has largely been discredited. Alabama bluesman Ollis Martin is another name hypothesized to have snad and played harmonica on the band’s records.

Today recordings come primarily from three excellent collections: Ruckus Juice & Chitlins, Vol. 1 &  2: The Great Jug Bands on Yazoo are hands down the best collections of jug band music available with an outstanding track selection, excellent sound and informative notes while JSP’s 4-CD set Memphis Jug Band with Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers is a superb box. JSP’s 4-CD sequel, Memphis Shakedown: More Jug Band Classics is almost equally worthwile.