Memphis Jug band inf reqd

Subject: Memphis Jug band inf reqd
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 05:31 AM

Just getting into the Memphis Jug Band and Will Shade.

Numerous accounts say the band broke up because of the increasing violence in Memphis and it became the 'murder capital'.

Anybody know the full story, or where it can be read up on?

Subject: RE: Memphis Jug band inf reqd
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 06:55 AM

If the group were worried about violence in Memphis they would never have formed in the first place, sounds like bull to me.
Any major river town full of stevedores, bars, hookers, gamblers,bent politicians etc will have a fair degree of mayhem and no doubt about it, Beale Street was the magnet for all this activity. Similar in a way to Ratcliffe Highway alongside the Thames in London during the past.

My first visit there was in 1976 when it was virtually all derelict buildings (this was before it was rebuilt and tarted up for the tourists). Even then the police came down and insisted we leave under their escort, it being the dangerous part of town. What they didn't realise was that our motel was on the next corner.

I would guess that the main reason for the bands demise was that their style of raucus good time music was going out of style, this and the depression.

There are four volumes of their music available on the Frog label which I believe cover everything. JSP also issued three volumes but I'm not sure if they are still in print. It's all great stuff anyway.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Memphis Jug band inf reqd
From: greg stephens
Date: 30 Jun 07 - 01:11 PM

The main thing about the Memphis Jug Band is this: if you've never listened to them, start now. You won't regret it.

Subject: RE: Memphis Jug band inf reqd
From: 12-stringer
Date: 01 Jul 07 - 12:53 AM

What broke up the MJB was the depression and the change in preferred musical styles. Record sales dropped, and most of the companies went out of business or reorganized severely, in the 1930-32 period. The MJB made good money (Will Shade bought a house and invested in Victor stock, only to lose the house and sell the stock at pennies on the dollar), but the swingier hokum music replaced the sometimes raggedy jug band sound. Same thing happened in hillbilly, with the elements of what became western swing pushing the oldtime breakdown bands out of the picture. The MJB had its last session for ARC in 1934, and it was a good session, but it just didn't catch on with a public that had limited amounts of $ to spend on entertainment.

Shade and Burse continued to play around -- small gigs and busking -- into the 50s, but they couldn't make a living just playing music any more. (Victor paid Will Shade $25 a week for several years as advances and as manager of the MJB, and that was good money for the place and time, hence the house and Victor stock that he bought, but he lost it all in the depression and went to a life of odd jobs, drinking, and poverty. Burse had a day job as a painter and even got back into the studio in the very late 30s, with a swing-oriented group, but the records weren't successful. Shade wasn't with him on this session.)

Undoubtedly there is something more contemporary about the band, but some of the most insightful and interesting info will be found in Samuel Charters' "The Country Blues" (1959), based on interviews with Shade, Burse, and Gus Cannon in the middle 1950s. A lot of writers have covered the same ground since, but Charters was the first. You can hear the music of the three from 1956 on the Folkways LP "American Skiffle Bands," and there are some good 60s tracks of Shade and Burse on a Rounder vinyl, "Beale Street Mess Around," which really should be reissued.