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.
Skiffle is a genre of folk music with influences from blues, jazz, and American folk music, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a form in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, it became extremely popular in the UK in the 1950s, where it was played by such artists as Lonnie Donegan, The Vipers Skiffle Group, Ken Colyer, and Chas McDevitt. Skiffle was a major part of the early careers of some musicians who later became prominent jazz, pop, blues, folk, and rock performers, The Beatles and Rory Gallagher amongst them. It has been seen as a critical stepping stone to the second British folk revival, the British blues boom, and British Invasion of the US popular music.
Ross Elliott Burge is a New Zealand musician, who started playing drums with the Nelson College rock band Mandias in 1973. He decided that this was to be the life for him, and called the NZPO to ensure back-up. He has since played drums for bands and artists such as, and in roughly chronological order:- Andy Anderson's express, Rodger Fox Big Band, Sharon O'Neill, Jon Stevens, The Scouts, Two Armed Men, Spines, Sneaky Feelings, The Happ'ng Thang (Australia), The Mutton Birds, Bic Runga, Rick Bryant, Windy City Strugglers, Tim Finn, The Finn Brothers, Dave Dobbyn and Anika Moa.Hamish Gunn [ guitar and vocals in Mandias, Golden Horn Sound Company Band sponsored “Lady and BackBone” ].
Sneaky Feelings are a New Zealand pop rock band which releases on the Flying Nun Records music label. The band formed in 1980 with the line-up of Matthew Bannister, David Pine, Kat Tyrie and Martin Durrant. Tyrie was replaced by John Kelcher in 1984. Durrant was temporarily replaced by Ross Burge in 1988 for the band's second tour of Europe.
Arthur Baysting was a New Zealand writer, producer and children's advocate. He lived in Auckland with his partner, artist Jean Clarkson. They have two grown children.
The Memphis Jug Band was an American musical group active from the mid-1920s to the late 1950s. The band featured harmonica, kazoo, fiddle and mandolin or banjolin, backed by guitar, piano, washboard, washtub bass and jug. They played slow blues, pop songs, humorous songs and upbeat dance numbers with jazz and string band flavors. The band made the first commercial recordings in Memphis, Tennessee, and recorded more sides than any other prewar jug band.
Shayne P. Carter is a New Zealand musician best known for leading Straitjacket Fits from 1986 to 1994, and as the only permanent member of Dimmer (1995–2012).
William Christopher Smither is an American folk/blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter. His music draws deeply from the blues, American folk music, and modern poets and philosophers.
Do You Believe in Magic is the debut album by the folk rock group The Lovin' Spoonful. It was released in November 1965, on the Kama Sutra label. The album features the hits "Do You Believe in Magic" and "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?".
Donald Richard Bryant, generally known as Rick Bryant, was a New Zealand blues and rock singer/songwriter.
Rick Bryant and the Jive Bombers were an eleven piece band led by Rick Bryant that performed 1960s and later styles of R&B music in New Zealand. Although it started as a covers band in 1983, it gradually transformed through several line up changes, with a repertoire of Rick Bryant compositions resulting in a CD release of songs by Rick Bryant in 2004 "Time" - the title track with image compilation by Radio Active New Zealand.
The history of blues in New Zealand dates from the 1960s. The earliest blues influences on New Zealand musicians were indirect – not from the United States but from white British blues musicians: first the R&B styles of Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, The Animals and The Rolling Stones, and later the blues-tinged rock of groups such as Led Zeppelin. The first American blues artist to make a big impact in New Zealand was Stevie Ray Vaughan in the early 1980s. Other blues-related genres such as soul and gospel almost completely by-passed New Zealand audiences, except for a handful of hits from cross-over artists such as Ray Charles.
The Pentangle was the 1968 debut album of the band Pentangle: Terry Cox, Bert Jansch, Jacqui McShee, John Renbourn and Danny Thompson. It brought together their separate influences of folk, jazz, blues, early music and contemporary songwriting. One of the band's most commercially successful albums, it reached number 21 in the British charts.
The Burns Sisters are an American folk music group from Ithaca, New York. The group has performed and recorded with various siblings, most recently consisting of sisters Marie and Annie. They have toured with Arlo Guthrie providing backup vocals and occasionally performing as his opening act.
Pat Wictor is an American blues and folk musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, and recording artist. Known for his ethereal style, he was nominated for Emerging Artist of the Year in 2006 by the Folk Alliance, and has released a number of solo albums. In 2010 Wictor co-founded the folk trio Brother Sun, with singer-songwriters Joe Jencks and Greg Greenway, and the band has since released two full albums and toured extensively. Wictor also has an extensive discography as a sideman, playing instruments such as lap slide guitar and dobro. He currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.
Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions is an American folk music album. It was recorded live by the band of the same name at the Top of the Tangent coffee house in Palo Alto, California in July, 1964, and released in 1999.
Devil in a Woodpile is a band from Chicago, Illinois. Although they routinely give a fresh sound to 80-year-old songs, their repertoire and instrumentation categorizes them as a country blues or jug band.
Delgirl are an acoustic band from Dunedin, New Zealand, who play original music which is a mix of skiffle/folk/country/blues and Pacific styles. Original members, Deirdre Newall, Erin Morton and Lynn Vare formed the band in 2000. Newall retired in 2010 and John Dodd joined Vare and Morton on double bass.
Terry Wilkins is an Australian-born Canadian musician, composer and producer.
Jonas Friddle is a Chicago-based singer, songwriter, arranger, and banjo player; he also plays guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and several other instruments. His compositions have won awards, including "Belle De Louisville," which won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest award for Song of the Year for 2012. Friddle says he composed the song on the banjo which helps give it its rolling feel, appropriate for a song about a steamboat. Then in 2014, his song "Man Was Made To Fly" from the 2013 album, Use Your Voice, won the "Folk" category in the Great American Song Contest. That album was also nominated as Album of the Year for the Independent Music Awards. His original songs have been described as "a mixture of rock and old-time, New Orleans trad and bluegrass, country and blues."
