47 f Jug Band Music
Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band were giants in ’60s folk boom USA, but never made it to Britain. Kweskin finally got here this year, allowing Dave Peabody to quiz an early hero in depth.
A
t the start of the 1960s, a new generation of young musicians was waiting in the wings, impatient to revolutionise the prevailing music scene. In
Britain the Beatles and the Stones were feverishly rehearsing R&B standards and screaming their lungs out in damp caverns and basements. In the USA Bob Dylan was heading from Minnesota to New York City spearheading the many-faceted interest in acoustic folk and blues music that was spreading like wildfire across the land. This counter-culture onslaught produced much serious music, but one division produced music that reflected both the joyous free- dom of the times and the interest in past musical forms… jug band music.
In a short space of time jug bands prolif- erated in America. Dave Van Ronk got a head start in the folk-era jug band revival stakes as a member of The Orange Blossom Jug Five who recorded Skiffle In Stereo in 1958, and later, he’d record with his Ragtime Jug Stompers. The True Endeavour Jug Band featured guitarist Artie Traum, while The Even Dozen Jug Band included among its many members, pianist Joshua Rifkin, gui- tarist Stefan Grossman, mandolin player Dave Grisman, as well as John Sebastian who would shortly form The Lovin’ Spoonful. Out on the West Coast, The Instant Action Jug Band morphed into Country Joe And The Fish, while Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions contained Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan who’d go on to
form The Grateful Dead. But one group who stood out, gaining national prominence through their albums for Vanguard and Warner Brothers and for their engaging live performances was Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band, out of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Jug Band never performed in the UK although some individual members have been enthusiastically received: banjo player Bill Keith came with Peter Rowan and Jim Rooney in 1980, guitarist Geoff Muldaur has toured several times, while vocalist Maria Muldaur (Maria D’Amato when she was with The Jug Band) has been a regular visi- tor ever since her record Midnight At The Oasis hit in 1973. But The Jug Band’s leader, Jim Kweskin, had never set foot on British soil until this year when he came on invita-
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