David MacKenzie, a member of the Radio Committee at CCA, sent in a challenge a little ways back. It wasn't emailed or even called in - it was carried in on a slip of paper by his wife Hope Gaines. Dave wanted me to link Jim Kweskin to Peggy Lee.
Kweskin's name rang a bell (the Amazing Kweskin?) - it started a Pavlovian reel in my brain that is just six words long: "Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band".
I sort of knew what jug band music was - not really sure that I'd ever listened to much of it. Jug band music was part of the folk music revival of the late fifties and early sixties. Coffeehouse fare. (Editor's note: By definition - being part of a revival means that Jug Band music had a history before the folkies came along.)
I hit the Wikipedia with "Jim Kweskin" and the entry that came up had another name that I hadn't heard or seen in a long time - Mel Lyman.
Lyman played harmonica with the Kweskin Jug Band, and that experience apparently qualified him to move on to become a spiritual leader. A friend of ours from Philadelphia found the Lyman family in Boston and fell under the influence for a while.
Back on earth and in the music world, the Boston-based Kweskin Jug Band also featured Geoff Muldaur and Maria D'Amato. Miss D'Amato became better known to the music world as Maria Muldaur.
Ahhh, love. Before the Kweskin Jug Band, she had been a member of the Even Dozen Jug Band in New York. The EDJB was a late entry in the folk revival and when the band - uh, - disbanded many of its alums went on to other notable careers in the music industry.
Like who/what?
Like John B. Sebastian, who formed The Lovin' Spoonful.
Aside from his work with the Spoonful and his solo recordings, Sebastian was a prolific songwriter and at least one of his songs was recorded by Peggy Lee.
Her version of the John Sebastian song "Didn't Want to Have to Do It" was included in a 110-cut (whew!) box set collection of Lee's singles.
The Jim-Kweskin-to-Peggy-Lee challenge was featured on the January 12 show, which had the secondary theme of "Angels, Devils, etc".
5 comments:
Wow. and again Wow!
Awesome.
What I'd like to know is: Did David MacKenzie know there was a connection between Jim Kweskin and Peggy Lee or was it truly a random challenge?
Thanks, Tina. My guess is that it was random - but since the premise is that it is possible to link any two people, asking for the linkage is merely a way to look at connections that you already assume do exist. (Only waiting to be revealed by some nitwit with too much time on their hands.)
I'll ask David.
OK. This is the third attempt. Obviously, I'm not an experienced blogger.
Ha! The connection was not ramdon...I rarely do anything that is.
I found the connection while reading the liner notes of one of my Kweskin albums (yes, some of us have more than one, in mono no less, because some of us never really transcended the 60s, and why should we?).
But, I woke up one morning thinking that the challenge was too easy, given the source material. As usual, Mike's connection gave a lot more information, and more interesting information, that I could devine. I guess, now, I'll have to go back to my Lovin' Spoonful albums.
I'm afraid that Mike is setting the bar too high. If I can't find it on liner notes or labels, I'm at sea.
My next challenge will begin with Dennis Quade (as a singer, as well as an actor). I seem to remember that I agreed with someone to include Janis Joplin in it, but I'm not committed to that path. We'll see...
Wow - just finding links from Dennis Quaid to Janis Joplin could be fun. The more possibilities, the - well, the more possibilities. More chances to go off in an unexpected direction.
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