"a little bit of Betty Boop, a little bit of bluegrass and an entire zoo of instruments..."

Today's Date In Music History:

The Asylum Street Spankers Live at Cedar Cultural Center Minneapolis, MN - November 22, 2006

They've been called a postmodern jug band and "Hee-Haw for hipsters," among other things. The Asylum Street Spankers combine theatrics, comedy and jaw-dropping musicianship to give their audience a new dimension in live musical entertainment--a fine balance between sin and salvation.
The Asylum Street Spankers began 15 years ago during a booze and hallucinogen-fueled party in Texas. Since then the revolving-door Austin ensemble has performed a unique brand of acoustic music that mixes sounds of the 1920's and 1930's with punk attitude and ribald humor.



Setlist: 1) Monkey Rag 2) Golden Fleece 3) Asylum Street Blues 4) Breathin' 5) Leaf Blower 6) Think About your Troubles 7) You Only Love Me For My Lunchbox 8) banter
9) Smokin' Resin From A Tin Can 10) Wake & Bake 11) Hick Hop 12) Why Do It Right?
13) banter 14) Tight Like That 15) My Favorite Record 16) Winning The War On Drugs
17) The Minor Waltz 18) banter 19) Big Noise At Winnetka
20) Don't Ask No Questions 21) Oh Daddy 22) Stick Magnetic Ribbons On Your SUV
23) If You Love Me (You'll Sleep On The Wet Spot) 24) Wammo's Blues 25) Smokey Dokey 26) Sidekick 27) banter 28) Digga Digga Do 29) crowd/banter 30) BEER

*Download complete show*

Earl McDonald's Original Louisville Jug Band

AKA, the Dixieland Jug Blowers

At the turn of the century, African American musicians in Louisville walked the streets playing tunes on "found" or homemade instruments like empty liquor jugs ("the poor man’s tuba"), kazoos and washboards. They started a craze, "jug music".

Earl McDonald was born in South Carolina.His family moved to Louisville in 1885 when he was two years old. He grew up listening to jug bands playing on the street, and started his own band while still in high school. His Louisville Jug Band first played at Churchill Downs in 1903.
By 1913, fiddler Clifford Hayes had joined McDonald's band. The two would start a long collaboration, doing live shows and recording as both the Louisville Jug Band and (for contractual reasons) the Dixieland Jug Blowers.

She Won't Quit But She'll Slow Down (1927):



He's In The Jailhouse Now (1927):



Hayes and McDonald eventually split as bandmates because of disputes over money (some things never change).

Here are two tacks from Clifford Hayes:

Frog Hop (1929),w/ The Louisville Stompers:



Skip, Skat, Doodle-Do:

Cannon's Jug Stompers

Early jug bands played a mixture of jazz, country and pop that had its roots in ragtime.

Cannon's Jug Stompers, along with the Memphis Jug Band (see earlier post), was one of the greatest jug bands of the 1920's.

Gus Cannon was a banjo-playing jack-of-all-trades whose musical abilities included trombone, fiddle, piano, and guitar.
Gus ran away from home at the age of 15 and began his career entertaining at sawmills and levee and railroad camps in the Mississippi Delta around the turn of the century.He supported his family through a variety of jobs, including sharecropping, ditch digging, and yard work, but supplemented his income with music.
During the 1910s and 1920s, Cannon performed at medicine shows, playing, juggling, and doing comedy routines in the role of "Banjo Joe."
Cannon recorded as "Banjo Joe" in November 1927 for Paramount Records but soon strapped on a jug (Gus made a harness for his jug so that he could wear it around his neck and play banjo at the same time.) and assembled a jug band after the success of the Memphis Jug Band's first records.

"Minglewood Blues": Recorded on January 30, 1928 in Memphis, Tennessee. This recording features Gus Cannon on banjo and jug, Ashley Thompson on vocals and guitar and Noah Lewis on the harp. Minglewood was a lumber camp in Ashley, Tennessee, which was popular amongst musicians in the Mississippi Delta as a "hot spot." (This tune became a popular staple of the Grateful Dead).



"Viola Lee Blues": Recorded on September 20, 1928 presumably in Memphis. The lineup is the same as on "Minglewood Blues". Noah Lewis sings. (also an early Grateful Dead staple)



"Pig Ankle Strut":Recorded on September 5, 1928 in Memphis.



"Bring It With You When You Come":

the Memphis Jug Band

The Memphis Jug Band was a loose knit outfit, with constantly changing members. They played local events and were one of the main attractions when they played at Handy's Park in Memphis.


The Memphis Jug Band has been described as having a remarkable sound due in part to their unusual instruments. 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.

Jug bands were found in nearly every city in the South during the 1920s and '30s, but they were most popular and prolific in Memphis, Tennessee. The Memphis Jug Band was the first (and some consider the best) of many to record.

"Stealin', Stealin' " (by Gus Cannon) :Recorded on September 15, 1928. Will Shade sings the lead with Vol Stevens on guitar, Ben Ramey on kazoo and Jab Jones on jug.



(this song was plagiarized by Jimmy Page on the Yardbirds' Little Games album)


"A Black Woman is Like A Black Snake":Recorded on September 11, 1928. This jug band's lineup includes leader Will Shade on harp and guitar, Charlie Burse on guitar, Ben Ramey on kazoo, and Jab Jone on the lead vocal and jug.



"Cocaine Habit Blues":Recorded on May 17, 1930. Hattie Hart sings the lead with Will Shade on harp, Tee Wee Blackman on guitar, Ben Ramey on kazoo, and Ham Lewis on the jug.




As an added Bonus, here's another "Old-Timey Drug Song", this one by Dick Justice;

"Cocaine":Recorded on May 20, 1929 in Chicago.