"Kelly's last known recordings were in 1952 with Walter Horton for the then new Sun label, but no complete copy of the disc credited to 'Jackie Boy & Little Walter' has yet been found." (The Penguin guide to blues recordings (2006), p. 343)
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By Jason Ankeny
Singer/guitarist Jack Kelly was the frontman of the South Memphis Jug Band, a popular string band whose music owed a heavy debt to the blues as well as minstrel songs, vaudeville numbers, reels and rags. Little is known of the hoarse-voiced Kelly's origins; he led the group in tandem with fiddler Will Batts, and they made their first recordings in 1933, followed in 1939 by a second and final session. Although the South Memphis Jug Band's lineup changed frequently, Kelly remained a constant, leading the group in various incarnations until as late as the mid-'50s; he died in Memphis in 1960.