The jug band hero revived by the Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead had some of the most diverse covers of any rock band. From their very earliest days picking up electric instruments as The Warlocks, the Dead were taking on everything from Motown to Delta Blues to classic country and everything in between. Eventually, they found their niche as a psychedelic dance band, but their roots were in a genre far more niche: jug band music.
Musically adjacent to the bluegrass style that Jerry Garcia was initially obsessed with, jug band music brought together homemade instruments and traditional folk songs into an energetic mix of R&B and ragtime jazz. The first incarnation of the Dead was a jug band: Garcia, Bob Weir, and Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan all played in Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions before evolving into The Warlocks.
Even though they left the genre behind, remnants of jug music could still be found in the classic covers that became essential to the Dead’s repertoire. In fact, if you look at the very first Grateful Dead studio album, you’ll see the final two songs are credited to one writer. That writer was Noah Lewis, the harmonica player and vocalist for the jug band Cannon’s Jug Stompers.
‘New Minglewood Blues’ and ‘Viola Lee Blues’ were two classic jug band songs written by Lewis that were radically reworked by the Dead. ‘New Minglewood Blues’ received only minor changes, with Bob Weir unleashing a harried howl that became his signature on early-set blues songs from the group’s live concerts. ‘Viola Lee Blues’ received a major makeover, with the band abandoning the basic blues verses and exploring the outer reaches of sonic exploration, aided by Garcia’s lightning-fast guitar licks.
It wouldn’t be the final time that Lewis’ name would appear in the writing credits for the Dead’s albums. ‘Big Railroad Blues’ was another song written by Lewis that appeared in early Dead concerts, but it didn’t have a regular place the way that ‘New Minglewood Blues’ and ‘Viola Lee Blues’ did. By 1970, the Dead had plenty of alternative jamming vehicles like ‘Dark Star’ and ‘The Other One’, so there was no more need for ‘Viola Lee Blues’. Instead, the Dead brought it ‘Big Railroad Blues’ as a quick rock blues track, one that rarely extended beyond four minutes.
By the time the Dead entered their second decade of performing together, only ‘New Minglewood Blues’ remained a constant feature of their live performances. ‘Big Railroad Blues’ only saw intermittent play throughout the 1980s and 1990s, while ‘Viola Lee Blues’ was played for the final time on Halloween in 1970, laying dormant for the next 25 years.
Check out all three of Noah Lewis’ songs reinterpreted by the Grateful Dead down below.
