Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions
Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions
Genres: jug band, 1960s, grateful dead, United States
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About Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions
Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions was a precursor of the rock group Grateful Dead, and included three future members of that band: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Ron "Pigpen" McKernan. Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions was a jug band. Jug band music is a type of folk music that uses traditional musical instruments such as guitar, mandolin, and banjo, combined with homemade instruments, including washtub bass, washboard, kazoo, and, eponymously, a jug, played by blowing into it as if it were a brass instrument. Jug bands were popular in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1960s, jug band music enjoyed somewhat of a resurgence as part of the American folk music revival. Jug bands of the 1960s often played popular music from the earlier jug band era, along with more contemporary folk and blues songs, as can be heard on the Mother McCree's album. The performances on the album were recorded by Stanford University students Pete Wanger and Wayne Ott. They played the recordings on the folk music show Live from the Top of the Tangent which was broadcast on Stanford's FM radio station KZSU. The Tangent, a folk music coffee house operated by Stanford Medical Center doctors, Stuart "Stu" Goldstein and David "Dave" Shoenstadt, on University Avenue in Palo Alto, was a venue where other performers who later had flourishing careers also played, including Janis Joplin, Peter Albin, and Jorma Kaukonen. The tapes were thought to be lost to history until Pete Wanger and his brother Michael found them in the attic of their mother's house after she died in 1997. They found enough material there for a whole album. The recordings were subsequently mastered for CD by Grateful Dead recording engineer Jeffrey Norman. Michael Wanger, a boyhood friend of Bob Weir, wrote the liner notes for the CD. Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions includes several songs that were later played in concert by the Grateful Dead – "Overseas Stomp" (also known as "Lindy"), "Ain't It Crazy" (a.k.a. "The Rub"), "On the Road Again", "Monkey and the Engineer", and "Beat It on Down the Line". Musicians: Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions (album) Jerry Garcia – guitar, kazoo, banjo, vocals Ron "Pigpen" McKernan – harmonica, vocals Bob Weir – guitar, washtub bass, foot crusher, jug, kazoo, vocals Dave Parker – washboard, kazoo, tin cup, vocals Tom Stone – banjo, mandolin, guitar, vocals Mike Garbett – washtub bass, guitar, kazoo
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