A song — "Meningitis Blues" — that I ran into while poking through jug band music on Spotify (which I was doing as a result of listening to a podcast about skiffle music). I thought it made interesting listening during our covid times.
Here's the Wikipedia article on The Memphis Jug Band, which was "an American musical group active from the mid-1920s to the late 1950s... [that] featured harmonica, kazoo, fiddle and mandolin or banjolin, backed by guitar, piano, washboard, washtub bass and jug [and]... played slow blues, pop songs, humorous songs and upbeat dance numbers with jazz and string band flavors."
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Jimmy Page at 13, playing skiffle, or skiffle as it was done during the late '50s skiffle craze in England.
We don't care what momma don't allow,
gonna play that skiffle any ol' how.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewNLaBhPRY8
"A song — "Meningitis Blues" — that I ran into while poking through jug band music on Spotify "
Say what? I had to read this twice. Jug band music? Yes, that's what it says.
This is why I come here.
This reminds me of an old Tommy Davidson routine from 2009 - "On the strength in New York" tour. His routine addresses racial stereotypes, including "white people can't dance" or "white people have no rhythm". He then goes on to explain that white people DO have rhythm and can dance - illustrating it through his exposure to square dancing and bands that include instruments like jugs and washboards. The way he tells it, square dancing is so complicated they need someone to yell out the instructions, and white people have so much rhythm they will pick up any object and make music with it. Worth a look - I laughed so hard when I saw this routine my stomach muscles were sore; start at about 5:00...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGtVtagAkvw
I was a college roommate of a now-famous orchesta conductor, back when he was a mere music student learning the keys on a piano. At a music sale on campus one day, I bought a "live" Haitian Voodo music album (yes, vinyl, such was the technology looooong ago) for a whole dollar (the sale was seconds and rejects from a music store in town). I played a lot of D&D back then, and the cover art intrigued me, as I recall. I keyed the album up on the excellent sound system my more musical roomies had installed in our apartment, played it a bit, and turned it off. I was very disappointed in the genre, the rendition, the whole horrible thing. It was drunk people sorta chanting in French gibberish with chickens in the background, with intermittent moaning. At least the minute or so I heard.
My roomie the future conductor later came home, was intrigued by what he saw on the turntable, and played it himself. He then took the album to the back yard, broke it into small pieces, poured lighter fluid all over the remnants, and burned them into little black melted gobbets of polyvinyl charcoal. When I asked why, he replied, "To be sure nobody else ever listened to it." I accepted his artistic judgement, and didn't even ask him for a dollar to cover my costs.
My moral from that story is that sometimes, what is momentarily intriguing to one person may not remain so, and may not ever be even momentarily intriguing to anyone else. Enjoy music at your own pace, and don't feel forced to enjoy it at anyone else's suggestion.
We will not discuss my flirtation with the Canadian group Klaatu.
However, my only other two albums were the Brahms Violin Concerto, Itzack Perlman on violin, and a Tibetan Throat singing album. Both were much beloved by my roomies, one of whom had over 3000 albums, so I guess I batted an acceptable .500 in my own music purchases. Why only 4 albums to my name? I had a roomie with over 3000 albums.
Follow the lyrics if you can, the recording is really scratchy and muffled, unfortunately.
In any case, here they are for your convenience:
I come in home one Sat'day night, pull off my clothes and I lie down.
I come in home one Sat'day night, pull off my clothes and I lie down.
And that morning just about the break of day the meningitis begin to creep around.
My head and neck was paining me. Feel like my back would break in two.
My head and neck was paining me. Feel like my back would break in two.
I hurried to the neighbors that morning, I didn't know what in the world to do.
My companion take me to the doctor. "Doctor, please tell me my wife's complaint".
My companion take me to the doctor. "Doctor, please tell me my wife's complaint".
Doctor looked down on me, shook his head, said, "I wouldn't mind telling you, son, but I cain't.
He take me round to the city hospital. The clock was striking ten.
He take me round to the city hospital. The clock was striking ten.
I done hear my companion say, "I don't b'lieve I'll see your smiling face again.
Then the nurses all began to set around me. The doctors had done give me out.
Then the nurses all began to set around me. The doctors had done give me out.
Every time I'd have a potion, I would have a foaming at the mouth.
Mmm, the meningitis killing me.
Mmm, the meningitis killing me.
I'm failing, I'm failing, baby, my head is bended down onto my knee.
Not only is the song horrifying, but it's also practically diagnostic in its details of meningococcal meningitis, which often kills within 24 to 48 hours unless effectively treated.
This is great. I love the old blues artists, like Bessie Smith, Leadbelly and that ilk, and a lot of the white acts who did this music, too, like Bob Wills or Jimmie Rodgers, just to name a couple.
I'm rather partial to Gene Autry's "Rheumatism Blues." Dylan fans might find the instrumental riff at the beginning and then recurring throughout the song suspiciously familiar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhbAITLQGLs
A more recent version of this music is in "Genuine Negro Jig" by Carolina Chocolate Drops.
Dylan fans might find the instrumental riff at the beginning and then recurring throughout the song suspiciously familiar.
Over the years Althouse has made Bob Dylan and his work a nexus of her blog. Now it seems to she owes Gene Autry, perhaps the original pop-culture polymath, a commensurate of attention -- you know, equity and all that.
As for Rheumatism Blues, the lyrics are conventional "woke up this mornin' and discovered I wuz dead" claptrap. However, that slack-guitar-yodeling bit is alarming, comedic, and sorta brilliant. It needs a name -- How about Buckeroo Dada?
The Memphis Jug Band was one of the groups that Robert Crumb drew for his Heroes of the Blues cards. Crumb, of course, collects rare 78 RPM records of such groups and plays such music himself in his side project "R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders." And you might just be able to find some of his music on Spotify.
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