Dave Van Ronk and the Ragtime Jug Stompers is an album featuring Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....

 playing with a jug band

Jug band

A Jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of traditional and home-made instruments. These home-made instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making of sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, stovepipe and comb & tissue paper...

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History

From The Mayor of MacDougal Street: "As for the jug band, that came about more or less by accident. One weekend Max Gordon, the owner of the Village Vanguard, was in Cambridge for some reason, and he walked by the Club 47 and saw this huge line of people waiting to get in to see the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. In his mind's eye he transposed this queue to 7th Avenue South, where he had his room, and visions of sugarplums started dancing in his head. So when he got back to New York, he called Robert Shelton and said, "Are there any jug bands around town?" Bob said, "Well, yeah, but what you really ought to do is get hold of Dave Van Ronk and have him put one together." So he did, and I did. I called up a bunch of friends, and we formed the Ragtime Jug Stompers. Sam Charters was back in town, so he was our Pooh-Bah and Lord High Everything Else—he sang, arranged, and played washtub bass, washboard, jug, and occasionally would lend a hand on guitar. Barry Kornfeld played banjo and guitar. Artie Rose was on mandolin, and also played some fine Dobro. Finally, Danny Kalb, who had been a student of mine, played lead guitar and some very nice harmonica. (We also made him sing bass on "K.C. Moan," because he was the youngest and none of us wanted to do it.) It was a very flexible band because the musicians were all good enough to double or triple on various instruments, plus it had all the possibilities offered by kazoos and that sort of thing, so it was capable of more than one kind of sound."

It was re-released on CD in Japan in 2003 by Universal.

Reception

Writing for Allmusic, music critic Richard Meyer wrote "This wild and unrestrained collection of blues, jazz and blues standards makes Van Ronk's Red Onion album sound positively subdued. The rave-up of "Everybody Loves My Baby" is an acoustic equivalent of garage bands-to-come for sheer energy... it's a record brimming with an energetic spirit."

Track listing

Arranged by Dave Van Ronk and the Jug Stompers.

1. "Everybody Loves My Baby" (Spencer Williams
   Spencer Williams
   Spencer Williams was an American jazz and popular music composer, pianist, and singer. He is best known for his hit songs "Basin Street Blues", "I Ain't Got Nobody", "Royal Garden Blues", "I've Found a New Baby", "Everybody Loves My Baby", "Tishomingo Blues", "Careless Love", and many...
   
   , Jack Palmer) – 2:53
2. "Stealin' (long version)" (Will Shade
   Will Shade
   Will Shade was an African American Memphis blues musician, best known for his membership in the Memphis Jug Band. Shade was commonly called Son Brimmer, a nickname from his grandmother Annie Brimmer, because "son" is short for "grandson"...
   
   ) – 3:13
3. "Saint Louis Tickle" (James O'Dea, Barney, Seymore) – 3:33
4. "Sister Kate" (Armand Piron and Clarence Williams) – 2:17
5. "Take it slow and easy" (Jesse Fuller
   Jesse Fuller
   Jesse Fuller was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues".-Early life:...
   
   ) – 2:25
6. "Mack the Knife
   Mack the Knife
   "Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife", originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the...
   
   " (Kurt Weill
   Kurt Weill
   Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
   
   , Bertold Brecht, Beitzstein) – 2:35
7. "Diggin' my Potatoes" (Sonny Terry
   Sonny Terry
   Saunders Terrell, better known as Sonny Terry was a blind American Piedmont blues musician. He was widely known for his energetic blues harmonica style, which frequently included vocal whoops and hollers, and imitations of trains and fox hunts.-Career:Terry was born in Greensboro, Georgia...
   
   ) – 2:A3
8. "Temptation Rag" (Henry Lodge—Weslyn) – 3:09
9. "Shake that Thing" (Papa Charlie Jackson
   Papa Charlie Jackson
   Papa Charlie Jackson was an early American bluesman and songster. He played a hybrid banjo guitar and ukulele, his recording career beginning in 1924...
   
   ) – 2:50
10. "K.C. Moan" (Tewee Blackman) – 3:36
11. "Georgia Camp Meeting" (Traditional) – 2:45
12. "You's a Viper
    If You're a Viper
    "If You're a Viper" is a jazz song composed by Stuff Smith. It was first recorded by Smith and his Onyx Club Boys in 1936....
    
    " (Thomas "Fats" Waller
    Fats Waller
    Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
    
    ) – 2:32