With the release
last Spring of The J-band's I
Want My Roots, John Sebastian
has returned to a home he never
actually left. From his Bank
Street birthplace to the
Washington Square
hootenannies~~and through two
Woodstocks—Sebastian was and
is a jug band standard-bearer.
During the '60's, his Even
Dozen Jug Band laid the
foundation for the blues-pop of
The Lovin'
Spoonful, leading to a string of
hits that, along with Motown, is
regarded as American music's
first
response to the british invasion.
As music became wired in the
'70's, the ardently acoustic
jug band sound withdrew to
coffeehouse venues, where
amplification was shunned and
gigs were played on a food-stamp
budget. Today, a roots revival
is coaxing the jug bands out
from the shadows, and musicians
who can boast decades of
experience in the form are
attracting a new audience. For
Sebastian, this comes as no
surprise. "When I started
this project, I saw that there
was this opening for this kind
of music ... the ear was
fatiguing of a lot of types of
music that are very pre-produced
and processed."
I Want My Roots continues the
blues-pop catalogue of the
MusicMasters label, whose
initial
foray in the genre was Al
Kooper's Rekooperation, a disc
that showcases Downtime guitar
avatar
Jimmy Vivino who sings, strums
and co-produces on Roots.
Sebastian cameos with his harp
on
Rekooperation; and he and Vivino
had been gigging regularly
enough with Vivino's The Black
Italians for Sebastian to sneak
more and more jug music into the
sets. Before long, the J-Band
had become an inevitability.
"The first request,"
Sebastian says, "came from
a record company, and
not Musicmasters. It was a guy
from Sony who said, 'I bet you
could put together a great jug
band.' And I said to him, 'I
could put together the greatest
jug band in the world today.'
And then I started to think
about it and I said, 'You know,
I really could."
Sebastian already had the core
of the J-Band in front of him.
Keeping rhythm for The Black
Italians was drummer james
Wormworth. "James plays the
drums with a very wide scope. He
can hit a backbeat if that's
all you want, but he also has
the background for dynamics, and
jug bands use dynamics, much
more than rock bands. Rock bands
have 'A' and 'B' ---a
little quiet section and then a
big loud section."
What was missing was someone who
could play jug ... and washboard
and tub and pie plates and
anything else that could lend a
stomp to the mix. Fritz Richmond
was a comrade of Sebastian's
in pre-Spooful days, and was
brought in to complete the
core-group. He has since
elevated his role as J-Band
tinker to that of a mad
scientist.
"We stop in hardware
stores and cheap-looking antique
shops across the country,"
Sebastian says, "because
you never know when a good jug
is going to show up. You need
two washboards to
make an instrument---the way
Fritz does it is he sandwiches
two washboards together to get a
more resonant sound. He's the
one who actually goes to
NorWesCo Steel and gets a
washtub before it's had the
last galvanizing process, which
deadens it. It makes it
waterproof, but it deadens
it."
Historically, jug bands treated
gigs like pick-up softball games.
"The bands had
interchangeable members,"
Sebastian says. "Early
recordings [circa 1930] would
often feature a variety of
singers
within the band. When this band
began to come together, Jimmy
and I were the only vocalists.
Then it did exactly what jug
bands do, which is what amazed
me. Once we provided the setting,
this thing
then started to lead
us."
When Vivino snared the job as
resident guitarist on Late Night
With Conan O'Brien, he feared
he'd have to cede from the
J-Band. As Sebastian puzzled
over how to supplement the band,
his road manager turned up a
tape of Cambridge-area musician
Paul Rishell. "He has this
amazing voice and he plays
guitar like Blind Blake, "
Sebastian says.
He called Rishell cold and
invited him in; he accepted and
brought with him blues harpist
Annie Raines. When torchy-blues
singer Rory Block came on-board,
Vivino's life was made doubly
difficult—the J-Band had
become too strong for him to
quit.
It was in the teeth of
conflicting commitments and
multiple deadlines that the
foureen tracks for I Want My
Roots got laid down. In true jug
band tradition, the personnel is
in rotation from song to song
– no two of which sound alike.
In 1994. The J-Band performed at
Woodstock II, and last August
took the stage on Late Night,
performing the band's PG-rated
version of their sly 'n'
slinky anthem, "Just
Don't Stop 'Till You're
All Worn Out." The
record's most sublime element
is the voice of the J-Band's
mentor and senior member, James
"Yank" Rachell. At age
86, he has the wiry fingers and
lifetime career to put the
J-Band in direct contact with
the origins of jug music as it
was performed and recorded by
himself with the likes of Sleepy
John Estes and Sonny Boy
Williamson.
Starting his career at age 9
in his hometown of Brownsville,
Tennessee, Yank Rachell makes
his home today in Indianapolis.
It was here that three of his
songs were recorded for Roots at
The
Lodge: an ancient all-brick
studio blessed with an echo
to summon the ghosts of bluesmen
past, which contributes mightily
to thealbum's scope. This
music's
history is the history of the
country.
Sebastian says, "Jug band
music turns out to be the roots
of an awful lot of blues-based
music. It was one of the first
musics that was a hybrid,
because the players were
learning to play for urban
audiences, which were mixed. The
industrial revolution helped
created jug band music because
there
were suddenly large numbers of
people getting off work at the
same time. The blues singers—that
up until then were playing on
street corners to whoever passed
by--would get together and say,
'If we go down there together,
betcha we could turn a few more
coins than we could working our
own side
of the street.'"
Although the hobo is a common
jug band icon, the music really
has working-class roots, and
player's life typically meant
making regular gigs in Memphis,
Greensboro and Raleigh-Durham,
as well as playing the impromptu
set on the steps of the county
courthouse.
"The workingman's
environment created this
spontaneous audience, "
Sebastian says, "that would
show up at a given place at a
given time. The players knew
that if they hit lunch time when
the cigarette rollers all
stopped work, they could play a
little bit and make a living."
John Sebastian and the J-Band
will be turning a coin Nov. 22
at Borders Books and Music,
Stony Brook, LI; and Nov. 23 at
Monmouth Univ., W. Long Branch,
N.J.
John Sebastian and the
J-Band
Music Masters, 1710 Hwy 35,
Oakhurst, NJ 07755
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