Despite royalties and concert appearances, there was no huge jug band revival. By the time the Rooftop Singers had a UK Top 10 hit in 1963 with Gus Cannon's 'Walk Right In', Cannon was labouring in Memphis. In 1974 the Armpits recorded Cannon's 'Featherbed', under the guise of 'Henry Thomas', and for many years included 'Goin' to Germany' in their act.ДЇor twenty years jug band music was one of the most popular forms of music in the South, but with the depression of the 1930s and perhaps with the novelty effect of jug bands music wearing thin, it became difficult to keep bands together and many musicians reverted to daytime jobs, sometimes playing at weekends. Inspired by Noah Lewis' superb harmonica playing, Cannon's Jug Stompers produced a blend of country-dance sounds and blues feeling unequalled at the time. Perhaps the greatest of the Memphis jug bands was led by Gus Cannon, a farm hand from Mississippi who had fashioned his first banjo from a bread pan and broom handle. Between 19 the Memphis Jug Band also enjoyed an extensive recording career and two of their tracks, 'Overseas Stomp' and 'Stealin Stealin' have also been recorded by the Armpits. Occasionally, even, jug bands would leave Memphis, perhaps for several weeks, to travel with a medicine show. The band would also have been hired by restaurants and food stands to attract crowds, and when there were fewer gigs, they would have played on the streets of Memphis, particularly the wealthy white neighbourhoods where young professionals would be generous with tips. The Memphis Jug Band, a loose knit outfit led by guitar and harmonica player Will Shade, was so popular that it sometimes split into two sections for different venues on the same night. Jug bands, with their lively blues and dance melodies and cheerful sound flourished in this atmosphere. The city's saloons, gambling houses and dance halls attracted large numbers of visitors while at weekends Beale Street was the reward for a week of gruelling work in the fields and factories. One of the earliest jug bands to record was a Louisville group led by Earl McDonald, the Dixieland Jug Blowers, which included in its repertoire that Armpit favourite of many years, 'Boodle am Shake'.Д«y 1909 the whole of the state of Tennessee was subject to a prohibition law, the notable exception being Memphis, major steamboat city, capital of the cotton trade and heart of the South. This effect can be heard in the work of the Five Harmoniacs whose 'Coney Island Washboard' was recorded by the Armpits in 2003.Д«y the early 1900s jug bands were well established in Louisville, Kentucky, where they were much in demand, equally popular among whites and blacks, playing a variety of music which included blues, pop songs of the day, ragtime and old country tunes. The melody was usually carried by a kazoo or harmonica whilst tin thimbles scraped across a galvanised washboard could provide a persuasive rhythm, particularly in bands toward jazz end of the jug band spectrum. As such the jug replicated the tuba of the jazz bands and was sometimes called 'the poor man's tuba'. A paraffin can or earthenware jug would be employed, the player half humming half blowing a raspberry into or across the opining to produce a deep, fruity bass note. Some specifically used a 'jug' to provide the bass line. Sometimes they were called 'Hokum Bands' from the American Indian word 'hokum', meaning bogus or imitation. During the 1890s, 'spasm bands' made their first appearance on the streets of Southern American cities, creating jazz with a variety of improvised and non-traditional instruments such as kazoo, whistle, banjo and wash tub.

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