''Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions'' is an

American folk music The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ''roots music''. Many traditional songs have been sung ...

album. It was recorded live by the band of the same name at the Top of the Tangent coffee house in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

in July, 1964, and released in 1999. The band Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions was a precursor of the rock group the Grateful Dead, and included three future members of that band – Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and

Ron "Pigpen" McKernan Ronald Charles McKernan (September 8, 1945 – March 8, 1973), known as Pigpen, was an American musician. He was a founding member of the San Francisco band the Grateful Dead and played in the group from 1965 to 1972. McKernan grew up he ...

The jug band tapes

Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions was a

jug band A jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of conventional and homemade instruments. These homemade instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, bones, stovepi ...

. Jug band music is a type of folk music that uses traditional musical instruments such as

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

, mandolin, and banjo, combined with homemade instruments, including

washtub bass The washtub bass, or gutbucket, is a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator. Although it is possible for a washtub bass to have four or more strings and tuning pegs, traditional washtub basses hav ...

, washboard,

kazoo The kazoo is an American musical instrument that adds a "buzzing" timbral quality to a player's voice when the player vocalizes into it. It is a type of '' mirliton'' (which itself is a membranophone), one of a class of instruments which modifie ...

, and, eponymously, a

jug A jug is a type of container commonly used to hold liquids. It has an opening, sometimes narrow, from which to pour or drink, and has a handle, and often a pouring lip. Jugs throughout history have been made of metal, and ceramic, or glass, and ...

, 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 KZSU is a freeform FM radio station broadcasting from the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California, United States. KZSU broadcasts in stereo at 90.1 MHz FM with an effective radiated power of 500 watts. The station is owned b ...

. 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 Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master), the source from which all copies will be produced (via meth ...

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", "The Monkey and the Engineer", and "Beat It On Down the Line".

Track listing

#"Overseas Stomp" (

Will Shade William Shade Jr. (February 5, 1898 – September 18, 1966), known as Will Shade, was a Memphis blues musician, best known for his leadership of the Memphis Jug Band. He was commonly called Son Brimmer, a nickname from his grandmother Annie Brim ...

) #"Ain't It Crazy" ( Sam "Lightning" Hopkins) #Boo break #"Yes She Do, No She Don't" (

Peter DeRose Peter DeRose (or De Rose) (March 10, 1896 – April 23, 1953) was an American composer of jazz and pop music during the era of Tin Pan Alley. Biography A native of New York City, he showed a gift for all things musical at an early age. He lea ...

, Jo Trent) #"

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...

" (

Chuck Berry Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the " Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into th ...

) #"Boodle Am Shake" ( Jack Palmer,

Spencer Williams Spencer Williams (October 14, 1889 – July 14, 1965) was an American jazz and popular music composer, pianist, and singer. He is best known for his hit songs " Basin Street Blues", "I Ain't Got Nobody", " Royal Garden Blues", " I've Found a New ...

) #"Big Fat Woman" (

Huddie Ledbetter Huddie William Ledbetter (; January 20, 1888 – December 6, 1949), better known by the stage name Lead Belly, was an American folk music, folk and blues singer notable for his strong vocals, Virtuoso, virtuosity on the twelve-string guita ...

) #"Borneo" ( Walter Donaldson) #"My Gal" (traditional) #"Shake That Thing" (

Papa Charlie Jackson Papa Charlie Jackson (November 10, 1887 – May 7, 1938) was an early American bluesman and songster who accompanied himself with a banjo guitar, a guitar, or a ukulele. His recording career began in 1924. Much of his life remains a mystery ...

) #" Beat It On Down the Line" (

Jesse Fuller Jesse Fuller (March 12, 1896 – January 29, 1976) was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues". Early life Fuller was born in Jonesboro, Georgia, near Atlanta. He was sent by his mother to live with ...

) #" Cocaine Habit Blues" (traditional) #"Beedle Um Bum" (Booker T. Bradshaw) #"On the Road Again" (traditional) #"The Monkey and the Engineer" (Jesse Fuller) #"In the Jailhouse Now" (

Jimmie Rodgers James Charles Rodgers (September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933) was an American singer-songwriter and musician who rose to popularity in the late 1920s. Widely regarded as "the Father of Country Music", he is best known for his distinctive rhythmi ...

) #"Crazy Words, Crazy Tune" (

Jack Yellen Jack Selig Yellen (Jacek Jeleń; July 6, 1892 – April 17, 1991) was an American lyricist and screenwriter. He is best remembered for writing the lyrics to the songs " Happy Days Are Here Again", which was used by Franklin Roosevelt as the th ...

Milton Ager Milton Ager (October 6, 1893 – May 6, 1979) was an American composer, regarded as one of the top songwriters of the 1920s and 1930s. His most lasting compositions include " Ain't She Sweet?” and “ Happy Days Are Here Again”. Biography ...

) #Band interview

Personnel

Musicians

* Jerry Garcia –

, banjo,

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

– harmonica, vocals * Bob Weir – guitar,

, foot crusher,

, kazoo, vocals *Dave Parker – washboard, kazoo, tin cup, vocals *Tom Stone – banjo, mandolin, guitar, vocals *Mike Garbett – washtub bass, guitar, kazoo

Production

*Produced by Michael Wanger *Recorded live at the Tangent by Pete Wanger and Wayne Ott *CD mastered by Jeffrey Norman, Club Front *Cover art by Timothy Truman *Package design by Gecko Graphics *Jerry Garcia photo by Hank Harrison/Arkives *Pigpen photo by Joe Novakovich/Arkives *Bob Weir photo courtesy Weir family archives *Special thanks to John Cutler and Peter McQuaid

References

Sources

"Random Notes on the Goo Goo Dolls, Sugar Ray and the Melvins", ''Rolling Stone'', April 3, 1999Hajdu, David. "Waking the Dead: The untold story of the Dead's first breaths", ''Rolling Stone'', August 23, 2005
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070927003541/http://www.dirtylinen.com/linen/83/mccree.html Parrish, Michael. "Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions: The Folk Roots of the Grateful Dead", ''Dirty Linen'' #83 (August/September 1999)] *McNally, Dennis. ''A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead'', 2002, Broadway Books, , pp. 66 – 67 {{Authority control Folk albums by American artists 1999 live albums Grateful Dead Grateful Dead Records albums