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tion from those good folks at Hornbeam Records to record a new album and play a couple of shows, one in London and the other (so he’d almost feel at home) in Cam- bridge, Cambridgeshire.
From the first notes played and sung, Kweskin immediately captivated his audi- ence, the voice, precise finger-picking and general physique showing no sign of his 75 years of age. So, why had it taken Jim this long to get to the UK? “Never invited, and in my younger days I just didn’t have the opportunity. But I’m glad I’m here now!”
Born in 1940, Jim grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, listening to his father’s jazz 78s record collection that also included Lead Belly and Bessie Smith. Aged thirteen and fourteen he attended summer camps where he picked guitar tips from instructors. “Pete Seeger came to the camp I was at, so I start- ed to get and listen to folk music. When I was growing up, when you spoke of folk music, you were really talking about the Weavers, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, Josh White, people like that and it wasn’t until later when I went to college that I started to hear some of the really traditional people like Uncle Dave Macon, Mississippi John Hurt, the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and all that stuff. Little by little, I just got deeper into it. When I was in college I met a guitar teacher who could teach me how to three- finger pick and the basic thumb patterns, then I started applying those to the songs that I was interested in playing.”
“In ’58 I went to Boston University. In the summers I would go out and do stuff and then I quit college in ’60, and once I quit then I really hit the road. I went to Chicago,
St Louis, Ann Arbor, and New Orleans and then all the way to California and Berkeley, and I kept meeting people who played the guitar or had record collections. I was searching for music and for musicians. I went to Minneapolis just when Koerner, Ray & Glover were getting together. I was there for several weeks and we got to know each other. Spider had just written Good Time Charlie’s Back In Town Again, which I record- ed on my first jug band record.”
work of towns around the States, into Canada too, that had vibrant acoustic music scenes. You could travel from one to the other and meet people all around my age, in their late teens or early 20s. I would also go to festivals where I met older genera- tion musicians like Mississippi John Hurt, Booker White, Son House, Skip James, and Lightnin’ Hopkins. Most of these older guys weren’t re-discovered until after ’63, ’64, so by that time I was already a performing musician. I’d also run into those guys when we’d be playing at the same place, two people on the bill. I met Mance Lipscomb early on, who taught me Sugar Babe. He came to Berkeley. Chris Strachwitz brought him up from Texas. That was in ’61 or ’62.”
“T
“There was a big folk scene in Cam- bridge, Massachusetts in the early ’60s. There was Joan Baez, Eric von Schmidt, Mimi and Dick Fariña. Of course, Dylan was passing through and Caroline Hester and Eric Anderson and Richie Havens. If they
hen I went to Chicago and I met Paul Butterfield just as he was just start- ing to form his blues band. It was like a net-
weren’t in New York, they were in Boston, either passing through or they lived there. A lot of great musicians lived there. Tim Hardin, Butterfield lived there for a while. So, the Cambridge scene was very vibrant and the parties were fun. A lot of music and a lot of young good-looking, pretty girls, and a little weed. Smoking pot was, ehm… popular.”
“I was playing jug band music before I even knew what a jug band was. Jug band music is old-time jazz played on folk music instruments. It wasn’t until a little bit later that I discovered what exactly jug bands were. I became aware of jug bands because of the Harry Smith Anthology. On that col- lection there are a couple of Memphis Jug Band songs and a couple of Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers’. My jug band came about when I was back performing in the Boston area as a solo, but I was never solo. Every gig I did was a jam session with fiddle play- ers, mandolin players, Fritz Richmond play- ing the washtub bass, and harmonicas and you name it… we were jamming up there. I had a gig at the Club 47, which was the main acoustic music venue in the Cam- bridge, Boston area, and at the end of a gig with about a dozen people on stage, I didn’t notice at the time, but Maynard Solomon, the president of Vanguard Records, was in the audience. At the end of the night he came up to me and said ‘I’d like to sign you up. Would you like to make a record with that band?’ and I said, ‘Well, that’s just a jam session but give me three or four months and I’ll put a band together and I’d love to make a record’. So basically I had a record deal before I had a band.”
Photo: Dave Peabody
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