The Trolley Drops sustain the American folk music tradition of jug band every first Thursday of the month at Santa Cruz Food Lounge. Nashville started releasing jug band music in the 1920s, recording bands that were busking with makeshift instruments and whiskey jugs on street corners and riverboat ports. A melding of country blues, jazz, string band, and ragtime; jug band built on the African-American music styles and the then-popular vaudeville entertainment act.

Here The Trolley Drops lead a group jam on Stealin’ a tune debatably written or assembled by Clarence Williams and Gus Cannon (of Cannon’s Jug Stompers), but secured in jug band repertoire when the Memphis Jug Band recorded their version in 1928.

The Bay Area is steeped in jug band history. The folk revival of the 1960s stumbled upon these earlier jug band recordings and white college students started modern jug bands; such as the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. Even Jerry Garcia was playing early jug band songs with his Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions; the acoustic precursor to The Grateful Dead.

Jug’s not dead in 2020 California. Last year Santa Cruz County hosted a Jug Band Festival at Roaring Camp in Felton. There’s an annual International Jugband Festival in Sutter Creek, hosted by the California Jug Band Association. The jug band radio hour Sounds So Sweet broadcasts in Davis at 95.7FM KDRT and online Tuesday evenings. In the Central Coast, you may find Yo Pitzy Jug Band playing their modern jug band songs and in San Diego, G Burns Jug Band has released three albums of contemporary jug band music.

Over 100 years after the first jug bands entertained audiences and each other along the Ohio River jug band is a global phenomenon with the largest jug band festival held in Japan. The annual Yokohama Jug Band Festival attracted 50 bands last year. However, Louisville is still the heart of jug band music, hosting the annual National Jug Band Jubilee. The 1960s revival may have transformed the genre to white performers and audiences, but modern black musicians such as the (now defunct) Carolina Chocolate Drops and solo, jugless Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton have commemorated jug band and old time music as steeped in African-American tradition and experience. More recently, PBS produced American Epic, a documentary series exploring the history of jug band and other American music traditions.

If you’re ready to try out jug band music bring your jug, banjolele, or makeshift instrument to Santa Cruz Food Lounge next month. Grab an original jug band song book compiled by The Trolley Drops and play along. Bring a friend, the band loans out kazoos.

Santa Cruz Food Lounge
1001 Center St, Santa Cruz, CA 95060