Weird Scenes Inside Cambridge, Harmonica History, Shadow Figures, & Folk Genealogies

[Mike Weaver]

That's some article!

In 1971, working  as barman in the student bar at Exeter Uni I spotted 
an ad for albums for sale by the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. I'd had the Big 
Brother/Jim Kweskin Mouse/Kelley  poster on my wall for a couple of 
years, so my curiosity was sparked.
https://collections.artsmia.org/art/132153/the-woman-with-green-hair-alton-kelley

So I bought them, first three jug band albums and Jim's solo albums 
Relax Your Mind and Jump for Joy. Relax Your Mind remains one of my all 
time favourites and Mel Lyman's harp playing is a lot of the reason. And 
that purchase was the start of a musical exploration that still goes on 
50 + years later, taking me back into the 20s and 30s with Skip James, 
Charlie Poole and Pink Anderson, and in the then present via the Geoff 
and Maria albums taking me to to the likes of Wendy Waldman, the 
McGarrigles, Allan Toussaint  and Bobby Charles. Years later hunting the 
web for more Bobby Charles I found the wrong Bobby Charles but his 
guitarist was Danny Gatton, rated by many of us up there with Django 
Reinhart and Lenny Breau as top of the greats. If you don't know him 
there's plenty of live gigs on Youtube.

The poster's still on my wall, and Relax Your Mind still gets played a 
few times a year.


On 30/11/2025 20:10, Hübschräuber via Pynchon-l wrote:
> Plus Pynchon and Fariña. Name of the Substack: Latitudes and Departures.
>
> https://lenaajit.substack.com/p/the-mirror-at-the-end-of-the-road
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l