Pre-war Jug

Since the 1890s, resourceful musicians had used whiskey jugs to approximate the sound of tubas. In Louisville and Memphis in the 1920s and '30s, these jugs became the foundation of a new blues genre that fused jazz, ragtime and country.

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Category:
American Roots
Air Date:
Feb 4, 2010
 

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More Info

In the impoverished South of the 1890s many would-be musicians did not have access to traditional European instruments, so players crafted their own instruments out of the things they had on hand. These so-called "spasm bands" were most often found in Memphis playing joyous, "novelty" music. These groups fell from favor in the 1900s, but the whiskey jugs they used endured and were used in Louisville and Memphis to create Jug music, a sound that fused jazz, ragtime, and country.

Works Cited:

Tracy, Steven. Going to Cincinnati: A History of the Blues in the Queen City. University of Illinois Press, 1993.

Bogdanov, Vladimir, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Erlewine. All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide to the Blues. Backbeat Books, 2003.