A jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of conventional and homemade instruments. These homemade instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, bones, stovepipe, jew's harp, and comb and tissue paper. The term jug band is loosely used in referring to ensembles that also incorporate homemade instruments but that are more accurately called skiffle bands, spasm bands, or juke bands because they do not include a jug player.
Gustavus Cannon was an American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands in the 1920s and 1930s. There is uncertainty about his birth year; his tombstone gives the date as 1874.
Lucinda Gayl Williams is an American singer-songwriter and a solo guitarist. She recorded her first two albums, Ramblin' on My Mind (1979) and Happy Woman Blues (1980), in a traditional country and blues style that received critical praise but little public or radio attention. In 1988, she released her third album, Lucinda Williams, to widespread critical acclaim. Regarded as "an Americana classic", the album also features "Passionate Kisses", a song later recorded by Mary Chapin Carpenter for her 1992 album Come On Come On, which garnered Williams her first Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1994. Known for working slowly, Williams released her fourth album, Sweet Old World, four years later in 1992. Sweet Old World was met with further critical acclaim, and was voted the 11th best album of 1992 in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of prominent music critics. Robert Christgau, the poll's creator, ranked it 6th on his own year-end list, later writing that the album, as well as Lucinda Williams, were "gorgeous, flawless, brilliant".
Joseph Lee Williams was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar. Performing over five decades, he recorded the songs "Baby, Please Don't Go", "Crawlin' King Snake", and "Peach Orchard Mama", among many others, for various record labels. He was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame on October 4, 1992.
David "Honeyboy" Edwards was an American delta blues guitarist and singer from Mississippi.
Barbara Dane is an American folk, blues, and jazz singer, guitarist, record producer, and political activist. She co-founded Paredon Records with Irwin Silber.
David Kenneth Ritz Van Ronk was an American folk singer. An important figure in the American folk music revival and New York City's Greenwich Village scene in the 1960s, he was nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street".
Blind Willie Johnson was an American gospel blues singer, guitarist and evangelist. His landmark recordings completed between 1927 and 1930—thirty songs in total—display a combination of powerful "chest voice" singing, slide guitar skills, and originality that has influenced generations of musicians. Even though Johnson's records sold well, as a street performer and preacher, he had little wealth in his lifetime. His life was poorly documented, but over time, music historians such as Samuel Charters have uncovered more about Johnson and his five recording sessions.
Ramblin' Jack Elliott is an American folk singer and songwriter and musician.
Victoria Regina Spivey, sometimes known as Queen Victoria, was an American blues singer, songwriter, and record company founder. During a recording career that spanned 40 years, from 1926 to the mid-1960s, she worked with Louis Armstrong, King Oliver, Clarence Williams, Luis Russell, Lonnie Johnson, and Bob Dylan. She also performed in vaudeville and clubs, sometimes with her sister Addie "Sweet Peas" Spivey, also known as the Za Zu Girl. Among her compositions are "Black Snake Blues" (1926), "Dope Head Blues" (1927), and "Organ Grinder Blues" (1928). In 1961, she co-founded Spivey Records with one of her husbands, Len Kunstadt.
Lucinda Williams is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, released in 1988, by Rough Trade Records.
Happy Woman Blues is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, released in 1980 by Smithsonian Folkways.
Samuel Barclay Charters IV was an American music historian, writer, record producer, musician, and poet. He was a widely published author on the subjects of blues and jazz. He also wrote fiction.
Other Voices, Too was a 1998 album by Nanci Griffith. It was her thirteenth studio album. Following on from the Grammy Award winning album Other Voices, Other Rooms, Other Voices, Too is a second album of cover songs written by a wide variety of singer/songwriters.
"Worried Man Blues" is a folk song in the roots music repertoire. It is catalogued as Roud Folk Song Index No. 4753. Like many folk songs passed by oral tradition, the lyrics vary from version to version, but generally all contain the chorus "It takes a worried man to sing a worried song/It takes a worried man to sing a worried song/I'm worried now, but I won't be worried long." The verses tell the story of a man imprisoned for unknown reasons "I went across the river, and I lay down to sleep/When I woke up, had shackles on my feet", who pines for his lost love, who is "on the train and gone."
Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, Volume 4 is a two-disc compilation of twenty-eight American folk recordings originally released on 78 rpm records between 1927 and 1940, issued in May 2000 on Revenant Records, catalogue #211. Compiled by experimental filmmaker and notable eccentric Harry Smith as the fourth album of his Anthology of American Folk Music set from 1952, it was never completed by Smith himself. While the CD is out of print, an LP version has been issued, along with the other three volumes, on the Portland-based Mississippi Records label.
"It's Nobody's Fault but Mine" or "Nobody's Fault but Mine" is a song first recorded by gospel blues artist Blind Willie Johnson in 1927. It is a solo performance with Johnson singing and playing slide guitar. The song has been interpreted and recorded by numerous musicians in a variety of styles, including Led Zeppelin on their 1976 album Presence.
Trouble in Mind is an album by American blues musician Big Bill Broonzy. It was released on February 22, 2000 by Smithsonian Folkways. The album consists of traditional folk, blues, and spiritual songs featuring Broonzy accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and a guest appearance by Pete Seeger. Suffering from cancer, Broonzy realized his time was limited and hence recorded extensively between 1956 and 1957. While most of the work draws from the album Big Bill Broonzy Sings Country Blues (1957), arranged by Moses Asch and Charles Edward Smith, Trouble in Mind is also sourced from concert broadcasts and interviews recorded late in Broonzy's career.
The discography of Lucinda Williams, an American singer, songwriter, and musician, consists of 15 studio albums, one live album, two video albums, and 25 singles, on Folkways Records, Smithsonian Folkways, Rough Trade Records, Chameleon, Mercury Records, Lost Highway Records, New West Records, Highway 20 Records, and Thirty Tigers.
