Hot Times at Old Town

Appearing below are selections from the hard copy Hot Times. The objective is to highlight activities at the School and in the larger community, especially those featuring or of special interest to teachers and staff. Your suggestions are welcome. Enter a comment (under any item); it will come to me rather than automatically appearing.

Old Town Jugs head to Memphis

On May 3rd, the Hump Night Thumpers, headed by teacher Arlo Leach, travelled to Memphis for a special occasion. (The Hump Night Thumpers are the school’s jug band/class).

Back in 2005, when Arlo stepped out of his car at Tennessee’s Shelby County Cemetery, he knew something wasn’t right. “It was just an empty field, quiet, with one tree in the middle. I thought I was at the wrong address. Then I noticed the little numbered plates on the ground.” The Chicago music teacher had traveled to Memphis to pay his respects to Will Shade, who led the most popular jug band of the 1920’s and 30’s, and brought a flower to place at his gravestone. What Arlo discovered, though, was that Shade was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave, forgotten and unrecognized for his achievements; his passing in 1966 had not even been mentioned in the press.

Now Will Shade received a second chance for posthumous recognition. Earlier this year, Leach and his colleagues at the School presented a tribute concert featuring Shade’s pupil Charlie Musselwhite and young jug devotees, the Carolina Chocolate Drops. The show sold out to an enthusiastic crowd and raised enough money to buy a granite marker for the grave. Musicians from Chicago, Memphis and elsewhere met at the cemetery on May 3 to celebrate its installation.

With its mixture of traditional and homemade instruments — washboard, washtub bass, kazoo, and jug — jug band music puts a good-time spin on acoustic blues. After its
genesis in Louisville around 1900, the genre reached its height of popularity with Will Shade’s Memphis Jug Band. Shade’s band first recorded in 1927, and played together until his death in 1966. By that time, younger musicians like Jim Kweskin, John
Sebastian, and Jerry Garcia had revived the genre, copying the 1920’s recordings before developing their own styles. Current roots musicians like Old Crow Medicine Show and the South Austin Jug Band continue to draw from the repertoire that Will
Shade and his contemporaries created.

But it’s more than his music that makes Will Shade’s career worth remembering. “He broke so many stereotypes,” explains Leach. He collaborated with his wife, the singer Jennie Mae Clayton, for 40 years; shared producer credits with white recording executives, which was rare for a Jim Crow-era black musician; and built his band into a versatile business franchise. “But largely because of his own modesty, running the band from behind the scenes, his contributions are underrated even by other musicians.”

The festivities included an informal ceremony at the Shelby County Cemetery followed by a reception and jam session at the Center for Southern Folklore.

For videos of the Hump Night Thumpers, check them out on youtube.com, through humpnighthumpers.org., or www.willshadetribute.com.

Filed under: Interesting elsewhere by Skip | May 4, 2008 |


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