Many of us, Deadheads, are under the misconception that the Grateful Dead first got together as the Warlocks, when in fact, Jerry Garcia formed a jug band with both Ron "Pigpen" Mckernan, and Bob Weir called "Mother McCrees Uptown Jug Champions. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, jug band music is a type of folk music, popular in the 20s and 30s, that uses traditional instruments like guitar, mandolin and banjo, along with home made instruments like the washtub bass, the washboard, kazoos, and jugs that were blown into as if they were brass instruments. Jug band music went through a resurgence as part of the American folk music revival of the 1960s. As you'll hear in Mother Mccrees, the jug bands of the 1960s often played popular music from the earlier jug band era along with more contemporary folk and blues songs. Many of the songs you'll hear on here are written by the Memphis Jug Band, personally my favorite jug band, I'll be sure to post some of their material in the future. The recording you're about to hear was recorded by Stanford University students Peter Wanger (whom you'll hear in the intro) and Wayne Ott. The recordings were played on the folk music show "Live from the Top of the Tangent", broadcast on Standford's FM station KZSU. The tapes were believed to be lost to history until they were found in Wanger's Mother's attic in 1997, after her death. Being what they were, the recordings were almost immediately mastered and released on cd. Despite it being released on cd, this is still relatively unknown which is why I'm posting it. Some songs you might recognize from later on Dead concerts are 'Overseas Stomp' (also known as 'Lindy'), 'Ain't It Crazy' (aka 'The Rub), 'On the Road Again', 'The Monky and the Engineer', and 'Beat It On Down the Line'. Enjoy!
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