Ruckus Juice & Chitlins 2
This trove of 23 recordings matchesits superb companioncut for cut. Each selection illustrates the jug genre's richness and diversity of style as well as racial and regional character, with bands' origins ranging from New York and Ohio through Kentucky and Tennessee on down to Alabama. Included are such flapper-age funk classics as Cannon's Jug Stompers' "Bring It with You When You Come"; the Memphis Jug Band's "Stealin' Stealin,'" "You May Leave but This Will Bring You Back," and "The Old Folks Started It" (with stirring vocals by Minnie Wallace); and Noah Lewis' Jug Band's "Selling the Jelly." Lurking in the collection's multicolored depths are discoveries such as "Brown Jug Blues" by Ezra Buzzington's Rustic Revelers and "What Makes My Baby Cry" by the Five Harmaniacs, a white vaudeville act from Brooklyn. Also notable is Mississippi Sarah blowing jug behind Daddy Stovepipe on "Greenville Strut," guaranteed to move the human butt.--Alan Greenberg