Jim Kweskin Legendary Folk Musician & Jug Band Leader

Folk and Jug Band Legend

Now Booking 2020 Festival & Venue Appearances 

With four recent, critically-acclaimed CD releases and an active touring calendar, Jim Kweskin is filling seats looking for festival appearances!

"Kweskin changed the very definition of folk music."
- The Saratogian

Jim Kweskin is probably best known as a singer and bandleader, gaining national prominence with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band in the '60s. Kweskin created one of the bedrock guitar styles of the folk revival, adapting the ragtime-blues fingerpicking of artists like Blind Boy Fuller to the more complex chords of pop and jazz.

"...Still a masterful guitarist and storyteller... effortless, gently driving finger-picking style..." 
- Robin Denislow, The Guardian 

Kweskin has maintained a remarkably consistent musical vision since his jug band days, continuing to explore traditional folk and blues with the sophisticated sensibility of a jazz musician and jazz with the communal simplicity of a folk artist. 

“Mr. Kweskin’s music is a blend of blues, jug music, rhythm & blues and jazz – rag-timey stompdown party music.”

- Alex Ward, New York Times

In recent years, Jim Kweskin has toured theaters across the US, Canada, and Japan with collaborators including Geoff Muldaur, Happy Traum, Samoa Wilson, Meredith Axelrod, and more. 

"Jim Kweskin continues to perform his vast repertoire of folk, blues, swing, jug band and early standards with his own brand of infectious personal interpretations. His guitar finger picking of songs like “Some Of these Days” and “Exactly Like You” is recognized by his peers and fans as some of the best there is." 
- Nat Hentoff

 

Now booking festival appearances for 2020

Jim Kweskin is currently booking appearances for 2020. Jim is available for solo appearances or with collaborators that include both folk legends and rising stars: Geoff Muldaur, Happy Traum, Samoa Wilson, Meredith Axelrod, Suzy Thompson, Juli Crockett, or a small band of outstanding musicians.

Booking:

Steve Fugett
Road Warrior Agency
roadwarrioragency@gmail.com
615-852-5508

www.jimkweskin.com

Jim Kweskin with Meredith Axelrod

Jim Kweskin with Samoa Wilson

Jim Kweskin (solo)

Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur

AMERICAN EPIC on PBS May 2017

www.americanepic.com   

““The film is a love letter to recorded sound, without which we’d never have left the silent film era and an intimate visual portrait of the recording process...a celebration of the honesty, vulnerability and immediacy of recording and the joy of making music.””

— AUSTIN360

Check your local PBS/BBC listings for times and dates. Likely the last three weeks in May and the first week in June. 

Four of my acts are in AMERICAN EPIC. Frank Fairfield, Hubby Jenkins, Blind Boy Paxton and The Americans. 

AMERICAN EPIC airs on PBS & the BBC in May 2017. Music produced by Jack White, T Bone Burnett.  Film produced by Robert Redford & the BBC.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcbATyomETw  

Lots of other famous musicians in it. More info on that here  

http://jackwhiteiii.com/american-epic/ and from PBS http://www.pbs.org/americanepic/

““This is one of the coolest things we’ve ever done.””

— ALABAMA SHAKES

Carolina Chocolate Drops Hubby Jenkins Now Available

Carolina Chocolate Drops member Hubby Jenkins is available for solo performances. Hubby is a talented multi-instrumentalist who endeavors to share his love and knowledge of old-time American music. Hubby is known from his work with the Carolina Chocolate Drops (Grammy nominated) and from his association with the Rhiannon Giddens band. She was nominated for a 2016 Grammy with an album he played on (Tomorrow Is My Turn). 

An Interview with Hubby Jenkins here http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2014/02/have_bones_will_travel_hubby_j.html

and find out more about Hubby Jenkins at his web site 

www.hubbyjenkins.com 

Markus James HEAD FOR THE HILLS New Album

Firenze Records announces an October 28th release date for Markus James’ new album, Head for the Hills. Recorded in Holly Springs, Como, Senatobia and Luxahoma, Mississippi, as well as in Northern California, Head for the Hills showcases Markus James on vocals, electric slide, 3 string cigar box, gourd banjo, slide dulcimer, acoustic guitar, harmonica, beatbox, and a snakeskin­covered 1­ string diddley bow. He’s backed by a “who’s who” of North Mississippi Hill Country drummers including Kinney Kimbrough (son of Junior Kimbrough), Calvin Jackson (R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, Deep Blues film), Aubrey “Bill” Turner (Otha Turner), and R.L. Boyce (Jessie Mae Hemphill).

Also appearing is drummer Marlon Green, who was the last drummer to record and tour with the legendary John Lee Hooker, and who is currently accompanying James live (recent appearances include Montreal International Jazz Festival, Telluride Blues & Brews Festival).

You can find out more on "Head For The Hills" at this link: https://app.box.com/s/xeazjzw9t3kbvf9j10um

Contact me today about having Markus James at your event.

THE JAKE LEG STOMPERS UP TO NO GOOD

The Jake Leg Stompers are proud to announce the birth of their new album titled "UP TO NO GOOD."
We slapped it in the player and it cried out with great gusto! Cigars and CD's all around!  Find out more about The Jake Leg Stompers on Facebook by clicking here. And you can listen to tracks from the new album UP TO NO GOOD by clicking here.
Whoa! Some great photos from their March 9 show in Nashville. Click here!

Flashing back to an era when urban blues was played on jugs, banjos, washboards and gizzards full of moonshine, the relentlessly entertaining Jake Leg Stompers create the perfect soundtrack for selling snake oil. Their feel-good blend of virtuosity, comedy and clay-caked soul has been jammed into a fourth album called Up To No Good. And this time, carnival barker/multi-instrumentalist Hambone Willie splits fronting the up-to-10-piece group with new addition Leela Mae Smith, whose warm-molasses voice provides a counterpoint to Willie’s noble hound-dog growl. If following in the slow-dragging footsteps of such long-ago Americana and blues bedrock bands as Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers seems improbable, consider Hambone Willie’s own transformation from Bill Steber, the award-winning ex-Tennessean photographer. Steber became so intoxicated with the sounds and sights of Mississippi’s blues culture while documenting it with his camera on a grant from the Alicia Patterson Foundation that he quit his job to embark on a relentless musical bender that’s made the Jake Legs one of the finest proponents of this very-old-school style.

—TED DROZDOWSKI NASHVILLE SCENE

Please contact me for availability and more details. 

Markus James & blues Mississippi & Mali

Markus James and The Wassonrai are pushing the boundaries and mixing blues from Mississippi with blues from Mali, Africa. 

Roots Blues Traveler Markus James joins forces with four West African music masters to cook up what NPR Music calls "Rock with a West African twist"  in the group Markus James and The Wassonrai.  Thundering West African percussion meets voodoo-trance North Mississippi-style guitar riffs, with vocals in English and Mali's Bambara languages.  

While Markus James' original Blues-based collaborations, recorded in Mali West Africa and in Mississippi, have received widespread critical acclaim here in the US and in Europe, his live shows with the Wassonrai - West African artists based in Northern California - are uniquely wild affairs, only available at their club and Festival appearances, with some songs ranging to 20 minutes, in the spirit of the traditions they are based in. Originally from Northern Virginia, Markus has been based in the Bay Area for many years, as are his main collaborators in Markus James and the Wassonrai, players who hail from Mali, Guinea and Benin / Togo.  Markus is a recording artist whose productions skills and musical passion have lead him to create music with both Mississippi hill country blues artists including North Mississippi drummers Calvin Jackson (R.L. Burnside)  and in Mali with many artists including Vieux Farka Toure and Hamma Sankare (Ali Farka Toure).  Billboard Magazine writes about his latest album Snakeskin Violin, 

"profound world blues passage… extremely distinctive pieces, driven by a seductive rhythmic circularity that's a keystone of Malian traditional tunes and Delta blues."

Their live shows are incendiary, fusing house-rocking African drumming with trancelike North Mississippi-style slide guitar riffs. 

Click here for sizzling concert video!  You can find out more on Markus James and Wassonrai by clicking here.  

Click here for a one-sheet.   Click here for a sample press release about the show.

Please contact us with your questions by email roadwarrioragency at gmail.com. 

We can also offer a screening of the film TIMBUKTOUBAB with a performance of Markus James and the Wassonrai. Click here for more information.  Click here for a trailer from TIMBUKTOUBAB. More dynamic video here.

And here is video of Markus James and The Wassonrai in Belgium performing live. Click here.

"His original approach to blues music combining American Roots Blues with West African roots music is such a soul filled experience. They created some magical music."
—Fred “Freddie Blue” Goodrich, WWOZ, New Orleans, LA

 

 "The mix of sounds, instruments, and influences spanning the program is mind-boggling"   LIVING BLUES MAGAZINE

"This is an extremely powerful album" —Ben Manilla, Executive Producer, HOUSE OF BLUES RADIO HOUR

Blues concert slated for Falasco Center

Markus James & The Wassonrai to perform April 14

By Thaddeus Miller / tmiller@losbanosenterprise.com

Markus James and the Wassonrai will reach back to the cradle of civilization in its blues performance next month.

"I grew up loving blues music, and rock and soul music," James said. "I came to realize that rock and soul music are part of the evolution of blues music.

"And, I came to realize that blues music came directly out of the African history."

The band is set to perform its unique style of blues with a heavy African influence at the Ted Falasco Arts Center, 1105 Fifth St., at 7:30 p.m. April 14.

James, originally from Virginia, said the roots of blues music permeates life in West Africa. Call and response, rhythms and eccentric, homemade instruments can be found throughout Mali, Ghana and the rest of the countries in the region.

"You can go over there and play what we would call 'old-school blues music' and they will just start playing along with you," James said. "They'll say, 'This is our music.' "

The shuffle rhythm, a staple used by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker, finds its origin in the everyday process of pounding millet into a starchy paste eaten with soup. The process uses a six-foot-tall mortar and pestle, and the women working it develop a rhythm.

"You don't even have to go outside of your house to be experiencing the place in the culture that music plays in Africa," he said. "What we think of as our music, like boogie, blues and rock music -- ch-chunk, ch-chunk, ch-chunk."

James said modern percussion and rhythm instruments also originate from Africa, and many of them will be on display during his performance: a gourd banjo, a four-stringed gourd bass called a "bolon," a calabash drum and an eight-stringed harp called an "n'goni," as well as the electric guitar and harmonica.

James said the set list will get a mix of acoustic sounds, hauntingly intimate Skip James-esque songs and "we all also crank up the amps and start to boogie."

James is aware that the crossover of blues and African sounds may have some people scratching their heads before the concert.

"I've just been doing it a long time, and for me it's a natural thing," James said.

 

The Jake Leg Stompers Vaudeville Circus Fun & Laughs

The Jake Leg Stompers are currently traveling through Mississippi with their Jericho Road Show. Click on the arrow below for more music from The Jake Leg Stompers. Click here for pics of their Vaudeville Circus. We want to bring The Vaudeville Circus to your venue. Click here for a review of the Vaudeville Circus. Watch video of the circus here.

Listen here to The Jake Leg Stompers last album HILL COUNTRY HOODOO