Every now and again I just need to sit back and enjoy the infectious sounds of jug band music!  There’s just something about the music, one that is made with a mix of standard and homemade instruments including the jug, banjo, guitar, harmonica, mandolin, violin, spoons, washtub bass, laundry washboard, jaw harp, stovepipe, comb and paper, and for goodness sakes, even bones, that grabs me and holds me tight!  The ability for the jug band members to be able to adapt simple household objects into musical tools of high capabilities is astounding. 

That irresistible meld of ragtime, blues, minstrel, folk, and jazz makes for a uniquely pleasing form of music, one that grasps the listener first for its individuality, and then continues to hold them captive with its highly entertaining earnestness.

Early jug bands hailed from numerous U.S. locations, with Louisville, Kentucky, Memphis, Tennessee, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Birmingham, Alabama being especially important in the development of this most distinctive genre of music.

The Old Southern Jug Band, the Original Louisville Jug Band, the Dixieland Jug Blowers, Clifford Hayes’ Old Southern Jug Band, the Memphis Jug Band, Will Shade’s Memphis Jugband, Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers, Dewey Corley’s Beale Street Jug Band, Noah Lewis’ Jug Band, The Cincinnati Jug Band, The Seven Gallon Jug Band, and The Birmingham Jug Band are some of the earliest and most influential of the category, and certain of their work remains extremely influential even to this day.

Songs such as “On The Road Again,” “Going To Germany,” and endure to this day as classics of the jug band format, with no less than the blues-rock group Canned Heat covering “On The Road Again,” and the country-folk singing group The Rooftop Singers providing their version of “Walk Right In.”

Jug band music was resurrected in the late 1950s when the Orange Blossom Jug Five released their versions of the music, and into the 1960s artists and groups such as Dave Van Ronk And The Ragtime Jug Stompers, Jolly Joe’s Jug Band, The Jim Kweskin Jug Band, and the Even Dozen Jug Band all brought the music back into contemporary focus.

Plus, musicians who adopted the jug band format during its revival period went on to form other well-known bands, including John Sebastian who formed The Lovin’ Spoonful.  The Instant Action Jug Band eventually morphed into Country Joe And The Fish.  There is even little doubt in the assertion that even the hugely popular and influential band The Grateful Dead had its formative oars in the jug band waters.  And none other than the immensely successful group Creedence Clearwater Revival played the jug band homage strategy with their Willy And The Poor Boys collection, their fourth release.  The cover art for that 1969 LP on the Fantasy Records label depicts them in full jug band glory busking on the street.

And today, the terrific Chicago jug and early roots band, The Sanctified Grumblers, with Rick “Cookin’” Sherry and Eric Noden at the helm, carry the musical tradition forward.

This past week as I listened to the Gus Cannon And Noah Lewis – The Complete Works In Chronological Order – Volume 2 – 12 September 1929 To 28 November 1930 CD on the Documents Records label (DOCD-5033), I was again struck by the phenomenal harmonica work of Noah Lewis.  Since I haven’t briefly provided an overview of his life and career via the scant information available on him, now seems the ideal time to do so.

Noah Lewis came into the world in early September in Henning, Tennessee, a town in Lauderdale County, an area in the far west central portion of the state.  However, the year of Lewis’ birth has been debated, and depending upon which reference source is used, the three most mentioned years of his birth are 1890, 1891, and 1895.  As we often see with so many of the artists profiled here, record keeping and other factors have again lent to a discrepancy regarding this fact.

As is the assumption we often have to make with early blues and related genre artists whose backgrounds are devoid of precise facts, it is reasonable to assume that the young Lewis enjoyed music being an integral part of his earliest formative years, either via his family or within the social confines of his family’s social circle and area.  Regardless of impetus, it is generally accepted that Lewis discovered the harmonica as a child and educated himself to play it. 

While still in his early teen years, a relocation to Memphis occurred.  This was a pivotal move for Lewis, as Memphis was a music hotspot, and it was during this same period when he met Gus Cannon, a renowned five-string banjo and jug player.  By the time of making a connection with Cannon, Lewis had developed his harmonica skill set to such a high degree as to be thought of as an innovator on the humble instrument, an artist capable of a very fluid tone, one made even more startling by his immense breath regulation, resulting in his amazing capability of delivering his squalls and runs at an astounding volume and length.  Lewis had a few other tricks up his sleeve that separated him from other harmonica players that made him in-demand, most significantly his ability to be to play two harmonicas simultaneously.  These proficiencies, and others, allowed him to play with various musical aggregations, including marching bands and string bands in Memphis at the time of meeting Cannon.

Lewis’s encountering Cannon led to an eager introduction by Cannon to a young singer and guitarist by the name of Ashley Thompson, someone Lewis was already actually already aware of, being someone he had by now been performing with whenever and wherever they could, usually on the streets.  These three very talented men began a fruitful alliance that found them enduring as a group for a couple of decades as long as Cannon was in Memphis and not out somewhere with one of the wandering tent or medicine shows he frequently played with.

It took the success of Will Shade’s Memphis Jugband in the 1920s, and its ability to be recorded, for Gus Cannon to suggest Lewis and Thompson to become Gus Cannon’ Jug Stompers.  The band grew in popularity, and was first able to record in early January, 1928.  Their second recording session in September, 1928 saw Thompson not included, and being replaced by Avery Ward, a very good banjo player and guitarist.  And during their third recording opportunity only days after their second, Cannon had already displaced Avery with the six-string banjo artist, guitarist, and kazoo player Hosea Woods.  From that point on, the band’s assemblage somewhat stabilized.

And always there in the middle of the Cannon’s Jug Stompers tunes was Lewis’ fantastic work on the harmonica; strong, melodic, precise, and very well-structured.  And his vocals for the band were always spot-on strong, melancholy when required, and upbeat when necessary.  His ability to adapt his singing to the material was remarkable.  As an example, Lewis’ vocals on the Cannon’s Jug Stompers tune “Going To Germany” display his emotional impact to the fullest, with his poignantly longing singing being jug band art of the highest order.

The final recordings for Cannon’s Jug Stompers were made in the later part of 1930, but it was in both October, 1929 and November, 1930 sessions where Lewis made seven total recordings that finally saw him out in front as the “name” artist, three under his name solely, and four under the Noah Lewis’ Jug Band moniker.  The first two cuts, “Chickasaw Special” and “Devil In A Woodpile” were made on October 2, 1929, the day after a Cannon’s Jug Stompers session under his own name, with the remaining five selections of “Like I Want To Be,” “Ticket Agent Blues,” “New Minglewood Blues,” “Selling The Jelly,” and “Bad Luck’s My Buddy” cut on November 28, 1930, with the first of these released under Lewis’ name, and the remaining four seeing the light of day under the Noah Lewis’ Jug Band name.

“Chickasaw Special” is a spirited harmonica workout, with Lewis showing off his blazing speed on the harmonica with his usual pronounced strength of lung capacity.  Lewis does not sing on this selection.

“Devil In A Woodpile” likewise shows Lewis in fine form on the harmonica, with occasional whoops and hollers adding great excitement to the proceedings.  Again, Lewis does not sing here.

“Like I Want To Be” is another stellar Lewis solo outing on the harmonica, his normal leather-lunged attack again finely highlighted.

“Ticket Agent Blues,” “New Minglewood Blues,” “Selling The Jelly,” and “Bad Luck’s My Buddy” are all presented in a band format with a combination of superb lineups including Noah Lewis on his usual powerful and effective harmonica skill set and vocals, Sleepy John Estes lending excellent guitar work, Yank Rachel plying his sizeable mandolin attributes, Hammie Lewis expertly playing jug, and Van Zula Carter Hunt singing on “Selling The Jelly.”

And there was Lewis, his harmonica playing seizing all with his profound attributes, and singing to great effect.

For Lewis and the rest of American society, the Great Depression was right around the corner, and it seemed to be the impetus that sent Lewis into anonymity.  It is said that as the years wore on, he experienced a life of miserable destitution. 

Lewis survived another couple of decades, yet in early February, 1961, suffering from a case of gangrene that resulted from frostbite, he passed away in Ripley, Tennessee.  He was buried in Henning, Tennessee in Marrows Cemetery.

Lewis’ work as a vibrant, stout harmonica player, and as an excellent, affective vocalist in the jug band format, while not well-known outside of the enthusiast circles, should be made aware to every blues fan.  Hopefully, this brief profile assists in that way.

For those interested in Lewis’ work, there is no better place to start than the terrific collections below:

• Gus Cannon And Noah Lewis – The Complete Works In Chronological Order – Volume 2 – 12 September 1929 To 28 November 1930 – Documents Records label (DOCD-5033) – On CD
• Memphis Harmonica Kings 1929-30: The Complete Recordings In Chronological Order Of Noah Lewis And Jed Davenport – Matchbox Records label (MSE 213) – On LP
• Gus Cannon & His Jug Stompers – Sleepy John Estes With Yank Rachel & Noah Lewis – The Legendary 1928-1930 Recordings – First Recordings With Lewis & Rachel – JSP Records label (JSPCD3406) – On CD