Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order (1933-1939) by Jack Kelly & His South Memphis Jug Band
Release Date: 1990.
Recording Time: 65 minutes.
Recording Date: August 1, 1933 - July 14, 1939.
Release Info: Compilation (BDCD-6005) Studio Recording.
Styles: Acoustic Memphis Blues, Jug Band, Pre-War Country Blues, Regional Blues.
Document's Complete Recorded Works (1933-1939) is an exhaustive overview of Jack Kelly's career. However, for all but completists and academics, the disc is a mixed blessing due to its exacting chronological sequencing, poor fidelity (all cuts are transferred from original acetates and 78s), and sheer number of performances. Casual fans are better off with a less comprehensive package. ~ Thom Owens
Abridged from this album's booklet notes.
Memphis boasted a preponderance of jug bands and when record companies finally got round to recording the genre there were at least six formally organised bands working in the city. Four of those, Will Shade's Memphis Jug Band, Gus Cannon's jug Stompers, Jed Davenport's Beale Street Jug Band and Jack Kelly's South Memphis Jug Band, had fairly flourished recording careers. Little is known of Jack Kelly. It is thought that he was born in northern Mississippi at the turn of the century, moving to Memphis in the twenties where he remained until his death around 1960. He is remembered as a street musician who worked with guitarist Frank Stokes, Dan Sane and fiddle player, Will Batts. Later Kelly, Sane and Batts augmented their sound with a jug player, DM Higgs, forming a group called the South Memphis Jug Band. Their repertoire tended to favour blues based material and the combination of two guitars, violin and jug produced a decidedly "country blues". The uninhibited music of the country juke joint and southern township hall is evident in Kelly's first recording in 1933, the all pervasive impression being one of musical excellence rather than originality of lyric. Jack Kelly‘s basic chording and medium tempo picking, perfectly complemented by Dan Sane's busy, base run flat picking, underscored by Will Batt's plaintive fiddling and sonorous jug blowing of Dr Higgs, add new dimension to fairly standard themes like Highway 61 or Ko Ko Mo Blues. However, when Jack Kelly and Will Batts returned to the studio six years later they underwent a metamorphous, dropping Sane and Higgs – along with the "South Memphis Jug Band" – tag, and in their place an unidentified guitarist, possibly Little Son Joe, providing the foil. This change of personnel had a marked effect on their sound, almost taking their music back to the decade that produced the fine partnership of Frank Stokes and Dan Sane. Also, the material took on a more lyrical, profound and topical air as in, for example, Joe Louis Special ("Steak and gravy is his favour-ite dished"), Diamond Buyer ("Somebody, somebody, somebody been trimming my horses main") or the post depression Neck Bones Blues ("times got so hard, well, it made many men to eat kneckbones"). Throughout the forties and fifties Jack Kelly remained playing in Memphis finally teaming up with harmonica player Walter Horton. In 1952 they recorded two numbers for Sun records as Jackie Boy and Little Walter, but that was the last contact Walter Horton had with Jack Kelly. ~ Alan Balfour (1990 Document Records)
Credits: Alan Balfour - Liner Notes; Will Batts - Violin, Vocals; D.M. Higgs - Jug, Vocals; Jack Kelly - Accordion, Composer, Guitar, Primary Artist, Vocals; Jack Kelly & His South Memphis Jug Band - Primary Artist; Hans Klement - Remastering (uncredited); Little Son Joe - Guitar; Johnny Parth - Compilation Producer; Dan Sane - Guitar; Rudi Staeger - Executive Producer.
Tracklist:
01. Highway No. 61 Blues - Jack Kelly And His South Memphis Jug Band
02. Highway No. 61 Blues No. 2 - Jack Kelly And His South Memphis Jug Band
03. Ride Ripe Tomatoes - Jack Kelly And His South Memphis Jug Band
04. Believe I'll Go Back Home - Jack Kelly And His South Memphis Jug Band
05. Country Woman - Will Batts
06. Cheatin' Woman - Will Batts
07. Ko-Ko-Mo Blues - Jack Kelly And His South Memphis Jug Band
08. Cold Iron Bed - Jack Kelly And His South Memphis Jug Band
09. R.F.C. Blues - Jack Kelly And His South Memphis Jug Band
10. Policy Rag - South Memphis Jug Band
11. President Blues - Jack Kelly And His South Memphis Jug Band
12. Highway No. 61 Blues - Will Batts
13. Cadillac Baby - Will Batts
14. Doctor Medicine - South Memphis Jug Band
15. Lightenin' Blues - Jack Kelly
16. Betty Sue Blues - Jack Kelly
17. Flower Blues - Jack Kelly
18. Joe Louis Special - Jack Kelly
19. High Behind Blues - Jack Kelly
20. You Done Done It - Jack Kelly
21. Diamond Buyer Blues - Jack Kelly
22. World Wandering Blues - Jack Kelly
23. Neck Bone Blues - Jack Kelly
24. Men Fooler Blues - Jack Kelly
Recording date, locations, matrix, catalog number:
01. August 1, 1933, New York, 13712-1, Banner 32844
02. August 1, 1933, New York, 13713-1, Banner 32934
03. August 1, 1933, New York, 13714-2, Banner 32844
04. August 1, 1933, New York, 13715-, Melotone M-12812
05. August 1, 1933, New York, 13718-1, Vocalion 02531
06. August 1, 1933, New York, 13719-1, Vocalion 02542
07. August 1, 1933, New York, 13721-, Melotone M-12812
08. August 1, 1933, New York, 13722-2, Banner 32934
09. August 1, 1933, New York, 13723-2, Banner 32857
10. August 2, 1933, New York, 13726-2, Vocalion 02585
11. August 2, 1933, New York, 13727-2, Banner 32857
12. August 3, 1933, New York, 13729-1, Vocalion 02531
13. August 3, 1933, New York, 13730-1, Vocalion 02542
14. August 3, 1933, New York, 13732-1, Vocalion 02585
15. July 14, 1939, Memphis, Tennessee, MEM-142-1, Vocalion unissued
16. July 14, 1939, Memphis, Tennessee, MEM-143-1, Vocalion unissued
17. July 14, 1939, Memphis, Tennessee, MEM-144-1, Vocalion unissued
18. July 14, 1939, Memphis, Tennessee, MEM-145-1, Vocalion unissued
19. July 14, 1939, Memphis, Tennessee, MEM-146-1, Vocalion 05193
20. July 14, 1939, Memphis, Tennessee, MEM-147-1, Vocalion 05031
21. July 14, 1939, Memphis, Tennessee, MEM-148-1, Vocalion 05031
22. July 14, 1939, Memphis, Tennessee, MEM-149-, Vocalion 05312
23. July 14, 1939, Memphis, Tennessee, MEM-150-1, Vocalion 05193
24. July 14, 1939, Memphis, Tennessee, MEM-151-, Vocalion 05312
Notes:
AAD
"Highway No. 61 Blues No. 2" is actually "Highway No. 61 Blues" (once again)!