Dewey Corley

There's not much chance of making jug band music without a jug, although a few have tried. A washtub bass doesn't hurt, either. In fact, one of the main concepts of this tricky, goofy, and spirited style of music is to create a bass line out of something that basically sounds like a pile of junk. Perhaps it was supposed to be called "junk band music." There would be no more expert opinion than that of Dewey Corley, who was not only the leader of the Beale Street Jug Band from the '30s onward, but also one of the great players on all manner of jug band ordnance: including, of course, jug, and ranging from the depth-charge of the washtub bass to the insect-like whine of the kazoo, upon which he is considered one of the great soloists. In his later years, he also turned out to be one of the great A&R men, helping record companies such as Adelphi scout out missing Memphis blues legends such as the elusive Hacksaw Harney and the superb guitarist Willie Morris. Corley picked up the interest in music from his father and began playing the harmonica as a child growing up in Arkansas. He started hoboing around the country at the age of 18 and became highly influenced by Will Shade, the charismatic and superbly organized founder of the original Memphis Jug Band. It was Shade who introduced the genre in the river city after hearing a jug band holding forth over the hill in Kentucky. Corley came in and out of Shade's Memphis Jug Band, as did many other Memphis blues players such as Furry Lewis and Memphis Minnie. He was also a member of Jack Kelly's South Memphis Jug Band and also backed quite a few of the city's diverse bluesmen in duo and trio settings. His own Beale Street Jug Band was a most successful venture and became a fixture in Memphis for nearly three decades. A series of...