MP3 Hot Feet - FOLK: Folk Blues

Another tasty helping Chicken-fried, Pre-war, Hokum-billy Jug Music from Murfreesboro's minstrels of mayhem.

17 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Folk Blues, JAZZ: Ragtime



Details:
THE NIGHT HOKUM MET BILLY

Pleased to make your acquaintance, children, Limber Louieâs the name; thatâs right, the original limber leg hisself. So you want to know about the birth of Chicken-fried, Pre-war, Hokum-billy jug music? Well, you come to the right place, you know: I was there the night it all happened, back in Nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, it was.

Old Gid Tanner and Riley Puckett come into town lookinâ for to knock the dust and travelinâ coal tar outta their throats, and sure enough, they stepped up to Vic Danteâs Inferno Bar on Beale Street, you know, there âneath the sign that read âAbandon All Despair, All Ye Who Enter Here,â and when the dime store Indian workinâ the door says, âTwo bits,â old Gid reached into Rileyâs nation sack for the coins, and they moseyed inside.

In the back, by coal-oil lantern light, Will Shade was leadinâ a ragtag Memphis jug band in a chaotic stomp through a haze of opium and the blowback of grinning vipers. The Jamaica Ginger Happy Hour was in full swing, you know, with the dwarfs and fat ladies throwinâ back two-for-one Jake specials before a-shufflinâ off to work the freak tents down by the river.

Now, you understand I was sittinâ at the far end of the bar with a bottle of Hooch, and there beside me, old Gus Cannon was passing out wolf tickets to a pimp about a sweet mama he wanted to make some time with. âViola? Now she ainât no cheap trick, banjo manâ¦â says that lavender-ring rascal, pushinâ his fedora further down over his eyes and leaninâ deep into his elbows on the bar. The band kicked into another whiskey-stooped stomp, this time lead by a one-legged guitar player, name of Fuzzy or Flurry, or somethinâ, while handsome Jab Jonesâ jug sucked talk-back bass from the low-timbered ceiling. Suddenly the floor was spittinâ up sawdust, as it filled with hip-shakinâ hoochie-mamas dancinâ the âcock-it-on-the-wall,â the âblack bottom,â and âballinâ the jackâ with their hot feet.

I seen Gid throw back a shot and then he takes his gut-string fiddle and peels a reel while Riley starts walkinâ the fat strings of his flat-top, punchinâ points against Jabâs hollow jug. A right hypnotic chaos ensuedâyou might even say, eruptedâwith hustlers and hookers, vamps and vipers, coons and crackers all taking to the dance floor, a-shaking their sugar heels. Nobody ever heard nothinâ like it before! No Suh! It sure was somethinâ new.

Now here come old Frank Stokes and Tim Wilkins out of the gamblinâ room out back to get in on the action with Son Sims on his cigar-box fiddle. Talk about your string band bastards however you please, but you ainât never heard the likes when all these boys got to cookinâ with their medicine show numbers and coon songs, and them old plantation fiddle tunes, yes indeed, and meanwhile, the canned heat got passed around and around, a-fueling the whole frenzy. And then the gin-heads and jazz babies from Jim Canaanâs and Churchâs Hall caught that new sound on the wind, you know, and they hustled over so fast you could shoot dice off their coattails!

By now the saints and sinners were all a-yoked together in their common destiny at the seventh stationâwhere the fires burn brighter, deeper, and meaner than a butcherâs heart: Ainât no turninâ back now! You know you canât un-ring a bell! Thatâs when Ms. Lucile stepped up in a dress so tight you could read her mind right through it, and she sang till she sweat; all about how her long tall daddy, you know, gonna take her to hell, and put some sugar in her bowl, you know. Oh, I swear she done saved all our sorry souls with that miscegynated syncopation! North Georgia met North Delta that night, and they flowed together like untamable rivers surginâ into the old Big Muddy, to flood our musical bottomlands with fresh alluvial soul.

See, âcause down here, it ainât no sin! You got to shake it and break it with all you got âtil the undertaker lays you into that wooden kimono. You just sip that Jake, chuck a little Hell, and crawl all the way to Georgia on that Mobile Line, cause lawd knows, itâs the only road for a troubled mind. I ought to know! Yessur!

So thatâs how it all happened, way back in â28. These here Jake Leg Stompers are the bastard grandchildren of that nightâs shotgun marriage of blues and hillbilly music. They still playinâ that old Chicken-fried Pre-War Hokum-billy Jug music for nickels and dimes, you know. Yessur.

Iâm glad you children come here to see me tonight, but I got to be movinâ along now. Need to find me a Sugar Mama come fix my bed â this white lightninâs done gone to my head.

THE JAKE LEG STOMPERS ARE:

-Brandon Armstrong (string bass, trombone, tuba, jug, balaphone, mandolin, banjo, percussion, vocals);

-Ron Bombardi (fiddle, guitars, mandolin, tinwhistles, accordian, jews harp, percussion, autoharp, vocals);

-Bill Steber (vocals, guitars, banjo, ukelele, banjo-uke, harmonica, saw, mandolin, dujo, diddly-bow, autoharp);

-Charlee Tidrick (vocals, fiddle, mandolin, washboard, percussion)

-Sam Rorex (drums, percussion, guitar)

Based in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the Jake Leg Stompers offer tangy tastes of chicken-fried, pre-war, hokum-billy jug music to gourmet audiences throughout the greater Nashville, Middle Tennessee region. Acclaimed for their spirited, eclectic, and wildly unpredictable street performances, the Stompers are equally at home playing for dozens in night clubs or hundreds on festival stages.