Formed: 1927 Disbanded: 1934 The Memphis Jug Band was one of the most successful performing and recording groups to ever come out of the Beale Street golden era.  If you are only moderately familiar with early blues music the idea of a jug band seems very quaint.  In reality the band employed much more than a jug, played a wide variety of music and secured the most prestigious gigs in town throughout the late 20s and early 30s.

This collection of local musicians became popular very quickly, possibly because they were, even then, a bit of a throwback.  Any number of instruments were employed depending on which of many line-ups were on the stage.  The band employed all of the normal country blues instruments plus jug and fiddle, which were more of a traditional element.  They further reached out by playing popular music, including country standards that crossed the race line very effectively.

Although there was an ever changing line-up the front man was always Will Shade (aka Son Brimmer).  The following is at least a partial list of participants over the years:

    Charlie Burse, guitar, mandolin, vocals
    Jab Jones, piano, vocals, jug
    Charlie Pierce, violin
    Will Shade, harmonica, vocals
    Vol Stevens, mandolin, vocals
    Will Weldon, guitar, vocals
    Charlie Polk, vocals, jug
    Tewee Blackman, guitar
    Hattie Hart, vocals
    Charlie Nickerson, piano, vocals
    Ben Ramey, kazoo, vocals
    Milton Robie, violin
    Memphis Minnie, guitar, vocals
    Hambone Lewis, jug

Charlie Burse and Will Shade were the continuous backbone of the group, while Memphis Minnie had a relatively short stay.  The band played rollicking sets of whatever the situation required.  Moving from street gigs to political rallies for E. H. Crump, The Memphis Jug Band played the very most ritzy shows in town including the Chickasaw Country Club and the Peabody Hotel.  The band also opened venues for other so called “jug bands“ such as Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers and Jack Kelly's Jug Busters (which featured Frank Stokes on guitar).

The Memphis Jug Band was neither above or beneath anything.  They easily mixed Vaudeville with love songs, slow waltzes, songs about beating their women, cocaine, theft and murder.  As time went on these themes began to dominate Beale Street and not just Beale Street music.  By the end of the 1930s Memphis was the murder capital of the nation and Beale was a place where murdered was just one more thing you could get.The Memphis Jug Band was neither above or beneath anything.

They easily mixed Vaudeville with love songs, slow waltzes, songs about beating their women, cocaine, theft and murder.  As time went on these themes began to dominate Beale Street and not just Beale Street music.  By the end of the 1930s Memphis was the murder capital of the nation and Beale was a place where murdered was just one more thing you could get.

Also around this time E. H. Crump decided to “clean up“ the crime he had endorsed and profited from over the years.  That meant that much of what made Beale Street what it was had to go.  The Memphis Jug Band never returned to great popularity after the mid 1930s although Will Shade and Charlie Burse would continue to put together version of the act all the way into the early 1960s.

Before they left the music scene the Memphis Jug Band had created a host of imitators including Cannon's Jug Stompers (with Gus Cannon), Jack Kelly’s Jug Busters (featuring Frank Stokes), the Three "J’s" (featuring Sleepy John Estes), and the South Memphis Jug Band.  None of the imitators achieved their level of success which included around 100 different recordings.  The band finally disappeared for good when Will Shade died in September of 1966.  Will died of pneumonia in John Gaston hospital and was buried in the Shelby County Cemetery.  He was preceded in death by Charlie Burse who died in December of 1965 and is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery.