Oldtime

Foldin' Bed - Whistler & His Jug Band ca. 1930

Submitted by Roland Faust on Wed, 01/07/2009 - 16:05

Whistler & His Jug Band came up out of Louisville, Kentucky, and became the first recorded jug band, according to R Crumb's Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country. They recorded at least twenty-one songs between 1924 and 1931. The names of the musicians remain unknown.

A Jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of traditional and home-made instruments. These home-made instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making of sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, stovepipe and comb & tissue paper (kazoo). The term jug band is loosely used in referring to ensembles that also incorporate home-made instruments but that are more accurately called skiffle bands, spasm bands or juke (or jook) bands because they are missing the required jug player.

Bela Lam & Family: Poor Little Benny - 1920's

Submitted by Roland Faust on Wed, 01/07/2009 - 17:27

Weirdo Video Exclusive

Virginia native Zanddervon Beliah Lamb, renamed Bela Lam by Okeh Records, performs the song Poor Little Benny with wife Rose Meadows.

With Bela's brother-in-law Paul and son Alva, they became local favorites near the Blue Ridge Mountain region in the 1920's, eventually being called to New York City to record six songs.

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Influenced by the local religious music of the day, Bela Lam & the Greene County Singers, as they would come to be known, are notable for their shape-note harmonies, highly influential during the period.