#will shade

Will Shade (Memphis Jug Band) and his wife, Jennie Mae Clayton Shade in 1961. Photo by George Mitchell.

William Claxton

Will Shade

LECTURE 4: INFLUENCES (PART 1): There were a number of so-called “Jug Bands” in the American South during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. “Jug Bands” were especially popular among poor African Americans living in the Jim Crow South. One of them, the Memphis Jug Band, combined homemade “instruments” such as the jug, the washboard, and the washtub bass, with more conventional instruments, like guitar, piano, harmonica, fiddle, mandolin, and so on. Founded in the 1920s in Memphis, Tennessee, the Memphis Jug Band attracted remarkable talent, thanks to its charismatic leader, Will Shade, who specialized in guitar, harmonica, and washtub bass. And Shade was vocalist to boot! The Memphis Jug Band emerged as one of the most prominent American jug bands, largely due to their prolific output and their longevity (they kept jamming well into the 1950s). They recorded a fair number of songs on the Victor, Gennett, and Okeh Records labels. This is one of their most famous songs, “Cocaine Habit Blues,” recorded on May 17, 1930.

Bo Carter; Will Shade & Gus Cannon

(Recorded September 15, 1928 in Memphis, TN - not released until 1991)