In The Beginning Was The….. Jug-Once Again On Jim Kweskin And The Jug Band

By Zack James

Maybe Jed Swann wasn’t the first guy in the universe to listen to an odd-ball, odd-ball for a city corner boy back in the day when everybody, everybody that counted meaning everybody in youth nation, girls too, were living and dying over the latest record from outlaw rock and roll guys from Elvis and Chuck to the safe turnover time with the Fabian and Conway Twitty but there you had it. Jed had found himself one night in Harvard Square during his senior year in high school at Riverdale High on a blind date arranged by a friend of his friend Seth Garth. Seth had to beg off the date because of some pressing family matter and he had recruited Jed to take his place when his natural go-to corner boy guy for such emergencies, Jack Callahan, was waist deep in trouble with his steady girlfriend, Kathy Kelly. So no way was Jack going to oblige even Seth when whatever was bothering Kathy was in play. So Jed became the go-to guy since he had nothing better to do that Friday night and since Seth was funding the enterprise.  

Maybe a little genesis on how Seth originally had that date that he was not going to make would help. The friend who had arranged the date with Sarah Goode for Seth (to go with him and his girlfriend), Sal Russo, he had met one night in the Joy Street Coffeehouse on Beacon Hill in Boston. Seth had just started to get interested in folk music after hearing some stuff by Dave Von Ronk, Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs on a fugitive radio station, WXAM, a college station in Providence one Sunday night when the radio transmission got all ghost-like hay-wired and he could not get his favorite rock and roll station WMEX in the fetid air that night. As part of that program, Bill Marlowe’s American Folk Hour (really two hours but who was counting), Bill would announce during the program what was happening in the folk scene around New England, who was performing at the emerging folk clubs and coffeehouses that were sprouting like weeds around various college towns and the hipper areas of big cities. So Seth had headed over to the Joy Street coffeehouse when he heard Bill announce that they did not have a cover charge and they had what was essentially an “open mic” where young and unknown talent got to play a few songs and perfect their acts. He had taken Sandy Davis along for a date that night figuring that he would have a cheap date and would also get a better feel for this scene. (In the back of his mind even then, even in high school, Seth sensed that he might get a start in journalism via reporting on the folk scene and in the end he did get his first assignments as a result of his folk music interests when he was the only one around the various newspapers he was free-lancing for and would get the assignment by default). That night he had sat with Sandy near the front of the house, near the stage and after Sal had done his three song set had sat down in the vacant seat at Seth and Sandy’s table.                   

Seth and Sal had, after introductions all around, gotten into a conversation about what was happening with this emerging folk scene. Sal, who expected to ride the folk wave to stardom, seemed very knowledgeable about what was going on in the Boston area. That night Sal gave Seth two pieces of information that got him through that senior year in high school and almost all of his college years. The first was that the folk scene beyond the music would become a very big thing among those who served their time in youth nation since for the price of coffee, two coffees, and maybe a split pastry a guy could take a date and spent the night listening to up and coming talent. A cheap date for guys low on funds. The second thing that Sal told Seth that stuck with him was that not all those who were getting their feet wet would go the distance, would be able to make a career out of doing folk music but that some would. (In the end after several years of starving and living off the donations he received from the “basket” passed around after a performance and out on the streets Sal went back to his studies to become a mechanical engineer.)     

Sal, who whatever limitations he had as a folk singer did have a great a sense of who had “it,” who had enough talent to go the distance if they wanted to. After several meetings at the Joy Street coffeehouse Sal had asked Seth if he wanted to go over to Cambridge the next week to see a new act, Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band, at the already famous Club 47 on Mount Auburn Street and take one of his girlfriend’s friends as a favor date (that Sarah Goode Jed eventually took to the show).

Jed Swann before the night at Club 47could have given, in an expression of the time popular among the corner boys, “a rat’s ass” about folk music and was only obliging Seth who was footing the bill and because somewhere he had heard that these folkie girls were “easy.” That night though although Sarah turned out to be a very nice date, a real folkie chick, another expression of the time, pretty with long ironed hair as all the folkie girls were doing at the time imitating Joan Baez, a peasant blouse and a short skirt with sandals that whole “easy” thing took a back seat to Jed’s wonder at what the hell he was hearing when Kweskin and his jug band had finished up their third set. (He would after several further dates find out that while Sarah was not easy she certainly knew her way under the sheets.)      

Remember the only music Jed knew was either his parents’ old time swing or popular music, guys like Frank Sinatra and Benny Goodman, or Elvis and the crowd. Jed was not prepared to hear music that was produced from triangles, harmonicas, fiddles, washboards, kazoos, and the ubiquitous jug that centered the music. He had not been prepared to hear songs that went back in the American songbook to the early part of the 20^th century but sounded very fresh, very up-to-date. He was blown away with songs like Stealing and K.C. Moan. The next Monday morning in school Seth had asked him how things went, meaning did he score with Sarah. Jed dismissed the question out of hand (we already know what really happened in that department) and only said that Seth was onto something with this folk music stuff. Later whenever Seth wrote about the various incantations of jug music he would always be sure to put something about “in the beginning was the jug” in the article. Guess who he “stole” that line from. You know in the beginning it really was the jug. Got it.