The Jake Leg Jug Band – Live At Green Note
Coastal Light Records – 2025
15 tracks; 68 minutes
For those unfamiliar with The Jake Leg Jug Band, the band makes everything clear in the opening stage announcement when they say that they play music from the 1920’s and 1930’s. The band is a trio but often plays with additional musicians, on this occasion trumpet, trombone, percussion and backing vocals by Gabriel Garrick. The regular trio is Duncan Wilcox on double bass and vocals, Warren James on guitar, banjo and vocals and Liam Ward on everything else – harmonica, washboard, jug, saw, kazoo, jaw harp, comb and paper and vocals! Since the recording Liam has left the band after eight years but will no doubt sit in from time to time.
To note also that this is not the band’s first live album: a two CD set, Live At Audley Theatre, appeared in 2022. However, the band wanted to ensure that fans would have a different experience, so no tracks are duplicated across the two live offerings and this one was recorded in a more intimate small club in Camden, North London. The album has retained a lot of the often hilarious interchanges between the musicians, some of which may not be easy to interpret for a non-British listener!
The band’s music contains elements of blues, gospel. Warren opens the show with the uptempo “Betty And Dupree”, a traditional song about a famous murder in Atlanta in 1922, later the inspiration for a Grateful Dead song though this version is probably closer to Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee’s. Warren’s nasal delivery brings to mind the late Lonnie Donegan who was hugely popular in the late 1950’s in England with revivals of Lead Belly songs in a style known as ‘skiffle’ and a key element in the emergence of blues as a popular form of music in 1960’s England. The raucous tune fairly rattles along before Duncan slows things down with a fine version of “Someday You’ll Be Sorry” (Louis Armstrong) with an impressive trumpet feature from Gabriel. “St Louis Blues” precedes Warren’s entertaining take on “Champagne Charlie” which goes even further back, to 19th Century vaudeville.
The first gospel piece is “I’m Gonna Cross The River Of Jordan” before the band reverts to the decidedly secular “Making Whoopee”. A short “Joshua Fit The Battle Of Jericho” is almost acapella, just a little deep-toned harmonica at the bottom of the mix, the gospel theme continuing with “Little Black Train”, introduced as ‘that song about death that people often request’! The Mississippi Sheiks’ “Sales Tax” is claimed to be as relevant today as when it was written – “nobody likes paying tax” – and rattles along at high speed. Again interchanging the secular and the sacred, the harmonies on “Light From The Lighthouse” are delightful before Warren delivers the first of two Lead Belly tunes, an uptempo version of “Midnight Special”, later followed by “Ella Speed”. In between there is space for Gus Cannon’s “Bring It With You When You Come” and Blind Boy Fuller’s “Sweet Honey Hole” before the band concludes the show with a magnificent “Gloryland”, full of great harmonies and fine playing.
As well as their humour, the band show that they are excellent musicians: Warren is a solid finger-picking guitarist, Duncan’s double bass underpins everything, Gabriel’s trumpet and trombone add to the flavours and Liam’s multiple contributions add fun to several of the songs. This is a fine record of what must have been a terrific evening.
