Topic: Jug Band Music/Blues - Sweet or Rasty?

[waxwing]

I went to the final chapter of the SF Jugfest at the Great American Music Hall and saw Jim Kweskin, Geoff Muldaur, John Sebastian, David Grisman, Maria Muldaur, the Barbeque Orchestra (Fritz Richmond's old band from Portland that served as a back band when needed), Dan Hicks and Suzy Thompson. There was a lot of great music and a good time was had by all, including me, in the lively, packed house, median age, mmm, 60. It was a very fun evening.

But I couldn't help coming away with the feeling that the music was all very pretty and sweet (with the exception of the two songs Maria sang) when the jug band music I know and love is so low down and (to borrow a term from John M) "rasty". The Barbeque Orch. looks suspiciously like a country band, fiddle, mando, guitar and dobro, no harp, kazoo, washboard or, without Fritz, a jug. A local standup bass player was added on all their numbers and local Skiffle Orchestra member Morgan Meadow did add some jug from time to time throughout the evening. Some washboard was added on a few tunes by Portland musician Delmark Goldfarb, down due to his involvement in the movie Chasin' Gus' Ghost. Among the headliners, Sebastian added some harp from time to time, usually well off mic except for the occasional solo (I would have loved to hear more), both Muldaurs added the occasional kazoo, also pretty much off mic, in the big group numbers, and Geoff played washboard on one or two numbers, unmic-ed. All in all it was very lacking in the most characteristic rough edged sounds of early jug band music, with most of the instrumental work having a very sweet, uh, country folk kinda sound.

So this got me to thinkin', well, why? Now I know most of these players came out of the folk or pop folk scene when they were  starting up. Kweskin, Muldaur and Richmond, etc. got together in the Cambridge scene and got a record contract. Not to be out done, a rival record company (I forget the names here) went down to Washington Square, the NYC folkie gathering place and rounded up a bunch of kids, Sebastian, Grisman (first recording session for both of them they revealed), Grossman, Katz and Maria (then D'Amato) and others to form the Even Dozen Jug Band, which never recorded again, and I'm not sure they even performed as such very much if at all. Anyway, did the folkie roots of these musicians lead them to create sweet folkie music instead of the rasty sound they were hearing on the Blues Anthology records of the times?

Or is it a case of knowing what your audience wants? I couldn't help but notice that the audience Sunday night was largely women, which is really not the norm for most current white performers of pre-war African-American music. Did Kweskin and his buddies cross over into being pop-icons with a large contigent of teenie boppers among their fans? Certainly Sebastian went there with the Lovin' Spoonful. But I have to say that I also hear this tendency toward sweetening up the rasty blues from many of those other performers today with few women in their audience. Wishful thinking?

Nor do I think it's a "White" thing. Many modern Black interpreters of the prewar blues fall into the same syndrome. Keb mo', Guy Davis, even our own John Cephas seem to sweeten up their interpretations of the old songs. Think of C&W's recording of Ragged and Dirty. It seems spritely and right on the beat, whereas William Brown's thumb always seems to be just behind the beat, and Yank Rachel's playing on the older Sleepy John version is just, well, waay rasty. The Chocolate Drops maybe go both ways. Some of their interpretations seem pretty sweet to me but now and then they get a little low down, yet still with a kinda modern edge, as Cheapfeet was saying about their perf in Chasin' Gus' Ghost.

Maybe it is a question of audience? Maybe sweet just sells more records? I don't know. Certainly there are performers out there who do get the old rasty sound, but it seems a lot more play their blues sweet. Any opinions? Anyone think of artists who go strongly one way or the other?

And don't get me wrong about the concert. There were a lot of great musicians playing a lot of great music and a lot of audience members blissing out. I'm more talking about a simple question of choice of style, like why someone would rather play an old ladder-braced guitar instead of a beautiful sweet sounding X-braced guitar.

All for now.
John C.

[Norfolk Slim]

My inclination is that its very much about marketability and mass appeal.  Of course, everything is relative and I'm not talking about the cynical lowest common denominator/ big record label stuff.  Im no expert on jug bands, but certainly in country blues the more succesful, or more widely known artists and the ones who get airplay and a reputation outside of our rather narrow (and usually guitar playing) community of serious blues enthiusiasts, tend to be those who play sweet.

You mentioned Keb Mo, but the likes of Eric Bibb also come to mind.  I think Eric is great, but the music is generally smooth and sweet.  I think its simply more accessible, and attracts a wider audience and inevitably, the styles an artist plays that get the most positive feedback get played more and more- a sort of postivie feedback loop if you like.

There is a similar pattern with the tendency to push any blues towards the slick chicago shuffle that everyone knows and understands.  There is a band locally called the Back Porch Blues Band- billed as the area's "premier acoustic blues band".  Sounded interesting- but when i saw them it turned out that whilst they played acoustic guitars, they did so through amps and sometimes effects, and played fast slick shuffles with dazzling electric style lead lines.  They were very accomplished but really werent acoustic at all.  However they will get many more gigs playing that stuff than they would playing Charley Patton.

I think its the same with most forms of music- the harder the edge, the smaller the audience, because it tends to be the enthusiasts who have developed an appreciation and ear for those sounds who actually appreciate them.

For a contemporary player who gets the "rasty" sound, Corey harris immediately springs to mind and perhaps Alvin Hart.  But compare their commercial success with seemingly similarly talented folk like Keb Mo and Eric Bibb.... 

Oh and an honourable mention for a personal favourite- Ben Andrews who makes really rasty noises!

[dj]

All in all it was very lacking in the most characteristic rough edged sounds of early jug band music, with most of the instrumental work having a very sweet, uh, country folk kinda sound.

That's an interesting point.  Part of the answer, I think, is that we live in a world where things like keeping a constant tempo, coming in together, singing perfect harmony, and not stepping on the vocalist or instrumental soloist are the norm and we take them for granted, while this was not necessarily the case for the world that the Memphis Jug Band or Cannon's Jug Stompers lived in.  Heck, if I were organizing a jug band from among my neighbors who play music to perform at our local community day, I'm sure I'd be saying "Can we all please come in together?  Let's tighten up those harmonies.  Folks, we're speeding up!  Let's try it with a metronome."  In other words, "sweetening" the sound.  And I'd be doing it unconsciously, just because that's the cultural norm.  I think it's harder to break out of that norm in a group performance than it is in a solo performance.
 
For a second or two I thought that possibly insufficient alcohol consumption on the part of modern performers might have something to do with it, but then I realized that this can't be the case, as one could never accuse Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell of sounding rasty.    

[CF]

Dare I say it even may have something to do with the fact that we live in a more 'civilized' age & also we're hearing a lot of this music played nowadays by people in the middle class? Certainly Gus Cannon had a different experience in life than say the Muldaurs or John Sebastian, thus he plays his music differently? 

[Parlor Picker]

Let's face it, the bulk of Western society wants its music sweet, sanitised and accessible.  Play them some Patton, House, Blind Willie Johnson or some of the more recent Fat Possum recordings and these people would be horrified to say the least.

People who appreciate music with an edge certainly are in the minority, because the masses just don't get the plot and/or don't want to get the plot.

A similar thing applies when classically trained musicians try to play folk music (blues or whatever) and whilst all the notes are in the right places, the feel is just not there.  They don't really seem to understand things like syncopation and playing just off the beat. There are actually few current players with that magic touch.  As mentioned by me and others before, one exception is Roger Hubbard, and his lack of commercial success mirrors the remarks made by other commentators above.

[Chezztone]

Well, Waxwing, I think there is also an opposite trend, of people playing jug-band music, Hill Country-style blues and other folk-based musics with lots and lots of edge but not much artistry. The brilliant artists, like MJB or CJS, practiced all the time, lived and breathed this music, and could make great music that was sloppy in a good way. Modern acts seem to go too far in one way or the other.

[waxwing]

That's a good point, Chezz. Living in Grungeville I'm sure you get your fill of too much edge, eh?-G- But you're right, at the Jugfest on Saturday (I was only able to catch a few acts in the AM) I would say a common mode was someone calling out a key and starting off, with others starting a bar or two later, lots of sound, much of which had not much to do with the music, and then a few folks following the leaders ending and the rest trailing off later. I have often heard it stated that jugband music must be totally improvised (whatever that means?) but listening to CJS and MJB it is clear that no one is really going overboard with improvisation, if at all. Often between verses are well arranged duets or trios. Listen to the great jug/harp/kazoo intro to MJB's Cocaine Habit Blues. Just a great, well rehearsed arrangement that is so rasty. I don't mean sloppy in any way when I say rasty. I'm speaking more about tone (both instrumental and vocal), harmony, and consistent crooked time. Try counting out CJS's Viola Lee (not you, Chezz). Two 4 beat bars in the I chord, 3 beats in the IV, 3 beats in the I, 5 beats in the V and 4 in the I, every verse, except when Noah gets anxious and jumps his harp solos in 2 beats early. Everything played last Sunday night was dead square.

All for now.
John C.

[mississippijohnhurt1928]

All in all it was very lacking in the most characteristic rough edged sounds of early jug band music.

Well of course!

[waxwing]

Please explain, Hoy Hoy Boy.

All for now.
John C.

[Stuart]

Good topic, John C. Just a quick thought/observation--there's a lot at work here, but could one of the reasons/contributing factors be that some people sound sweet and smooth and others sound rasty by nature? (--and of course, the nature of the individual personality) I just listened to a few cuts from the J Band CD "Chasin' Gus' Ghost" as there's a range of performers in there. I just can't imagine Yank sweetly and smoothly singing "Tappin' That Thing." There's just that element of individual voice. Mississippi John Hurt contrasted with Rev. Gary Davis, for example.

As for the instruments and how they express an individual though a players "touch," and how a band functions as a whole and expresses the group's personality, I'll let the rest of you kick that around. I got to get back to work...

[uncle bud]

Wax, great topic, and complicated as well. A brief and insufficient response, but I wonder whether one factor in the specific show you're talking about is the fact that these people are throwing together a show quickly, and the less crooked, the straighter, the better, in terms of being able to follow each other.

The subject as a whole is something I'll have to come back to. I think it goes to the essence of truly successful contemporary interpretations of country blues and jug band music. Chezz makes a great point as well. Sometimes edge is all there is, and things are ultimately shallow.

[mississippijohnhurt1928]

Please explain, Hoy Hoy Boy.

All for now.
John C.

I don't beleive I'm capable of elaborating on that thought, I just agree with that, they have a rougher more raw sound.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I think Stuart and dj both put their fingers on something, which is that rastiness/lack of rastiness is a function of personal style and sound.  It is possible to go against the grain of one's natural qualities with regard to tone production, either vocally or instrumentally, but in doing so, you're liable to wind up with something more self-conscious and "striving" in it's qualities than true rastiness, which is a natural mode of expression for those who've got it, not a matter of saying, "I'm gonna go for a rasty sound on this number."
I think another factor in this issue is that once a musician actually has a personal style, the natural choice is to make music in that style.  It's like the way you talk, or the accent that the region you grew up in gave you.  A musician who participated in the concert who I think of as having a highly evolved personal style and sound is Geoff Muldaur.  He's been doing it a long time and he's earned it.  I reckon when he plays a song, he just does it the way he thinks it should be done.
One other possible consideration is that when the musicians participating in the concert began playing the music, a tiny percentage of the music currently available from the earliest recorded jug bands was commercially available.  The completist availability of the early recordings is of fairly recent vintage, and the bands back then in the '60s were scrambling for material, I imagine, and in choosing repertoire, looking in other areas of interest, like the Trad Jazz repertoire and Pop songs of the era, as would have the Jug Bands of the 20s and 30s.
I would love to hear a present day Jug Band play Pop material of the 60s and 70s and later with Jug Band instrumentation.  You want rasty?  How about Jug Band versions of "Build Me Up, Buttercup", "Disco Inferno", and "Brown-Eyed Girl"? 
All best,
Johnm     

[waxwing]

Come to the next SF Jug Fest John M, you'll hear tons of pop tunes from all eras played in the relatively "improvised" (not neccessarilly rasty) style. That's easily as common as covers of old JB tunes, except maybe Stealin' (always sung like the Grateful Dead). but hardly anyone "chooses" to cover the old style.

Maybe you're implying that one's style is somehow discovered by stripping away all artiface so that one's true essence comes out and that "choice" has nothing to do with it? Hmm. I know as an actor I worked hard to be able to play more than one character, modifying voice, movement quality, emotional make up, etc., to let the true essence of each character flow through me. Many actors lament being type cast, even if the character they play all the time is the one most comfortable for them to play, even because it is so comfortable. They want to stretch out but never get the chance.

Certainly the '60s jug bands chose material that was very rasty in it's original form, singing Noah Lewis' Minglewood Blues, a far rastier version and more obscure today than the CJB version, and Muldaur makes the choice to give it a bit of nasal tone, reminiscent of Noah's singing. I think they all mention Harry (?)'s Anthologies as their source for many tunes, so I guess it was on there.

Gotta go now, but there is so much more to discuss.

All for now.
John C.

[bighollowtwang]

Audiences nowadays are not that tolerant of what you guys are calling "rastiness" and I am assuming you mean the certain degree of roughness in terms of meter and tuning which gives groups like The Memphis Jugband that "dixieland band smashed on cheap wine" sound.
I think that after decades of multi-tracked and overdubbed pablum produced into a state of homogenous "perfection" your average listener today gets freaked out by "rastiness" and attributes it to poor musicianship...so performers sweeten up their material. This doesn't just apply to ensemble playing. Try playing Special Rider by Skip James, and end it on the odd II7 chord that Skip uses as the final chord of the '31 version, and most people will stare at you with that "wow, quite a clam" look. It's the same basic aesthetic that guarantees that "blues" records made by rock musicans will always sell better than the real thing. It's safer and more familiar.