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Long Live Jug Band Music!Have you ever heard anyone playing a jug? If you have, you will appreciate the effort and expertise involved in making an empty vessel sound musical. By Latrobe City - 24th October 2007 - Back to News If you haven’t, you will soon have the opportunity to see not just an average jug player but possibly Australia’s best jug player Tony Dunn performing live on stage with his wonderful band The Gutbucket Jug Band. The band will be performing at the Latrobe Performing Arts Centre in Traralgon on Sunday 4 November from 7.30pm.
Latrobe City’s performing arts and venues coordinator, Kathleen Roberts said that The Gutbucket Jug Band had been together since 1965 and has been preserving, restoring and invigorating a large slab of traditional jug band music ever since.
"They also are very well respected around the world for their capacity to take this style to new heights or extremes and have been hailed as one of the best true jug bands in the world today. Their signature sound includes original renditions of ragtime, dance hall, vaudeville, music hall, country and fifties rock," Ms Roberts explained.
"Each member of this six piece band is a seasoned and polished performer. The members are Tony Dunn who provides the jug playing, Colin Stevens with his raspy, distinctive, versatile voice - Colin also plays mandolin and harmonica; Tim Shaw on clarinet supported by Brent Davey on banjo and Ron Davis on rhythm guitar. The well rounded sound is completed by Ken Farmer on washboard and percussion," Ms Roberts added.
Ms Roberts said that all of the band’s songs are well arranged with every note heard and displaying impeccable musicality, rather than sounding like a loose jam of chord playing and percussion clatter.
"This impressive group of veteran musicians proves that any tune can become a jug band tune making any tune happier and more interesting. Together they produce some of the best renditions of jug band music you’ll ever hear. The versatility of the musicians and the choice of material from straight treatments of blues, through Latin, the smoky 1920s and jazz, the band masters it all. They create music that is colourful, carefree, earthy, fun and above all rhythmic and impossible to keep still to," Ms Roberts said.
Jug bands got their name from the earthenware whiskey jug that can be blown to provide a tuba like bass line. Jug bands can be heard as a missing link between the blues and the music of West Africa. At the turn of the century, African American musicians in Louisville, USA walked the streets playing tunes on ‘found’ or homemade instruments like empty liquor jugs, kazoos and washboards. They started the jug music craze which swept up and down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, infiltrating black music in the major river cities.
Between the 1890s and the Great Depression, jug band music enjoyed immense popularity. Along with the washboard bands in which a simple laundry device was transformed into a percussion instrument, the jug bands were a tribute to the ingenuity shown by impoverished rural blacks in expressing themselves musically on whatever they found at hand. Jug music was a descendant of the minstrel and early ragtime traditions, and in some cases touched by the jazz that was developing in New Orleans and Chicago, and as it travelled down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Memphis also became centre for distinctive jug band style.
The jug music craze peaked during the 1920s, and like the blues, its commercial fortunes were deeply affected by the Depression. Much of the history of the early jug music slipped from sight until the folk revival of the late 1960s. Then, groups like Jim Kweskin and his Jug Band, the Grateful Dead and the Rooftop Singers began to perform songs by jug musicians.
Ms Roberts added that jug band music has always been played by real musicians and provides real entertainment.
"So, come and see the past, present and future of jug band music. It’s a guaranteed toe-tapping great night out," Ms Roberts concluded.
The Gutbucket Jug Band will be touring regional Victoria during November and will come to the Latrobe Performing Arts Centre, Traralgon on Sunday 4 November from 7.30pm as part of the Café Concert Series.
Their tour is supported by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria and the Community Support Fund. Tickets are on sale now at the Box Office on 5174 3559. Supervised children are admitted free.
Source: www.gippsland.com Published by: news@gippsland.com
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