Hands up at the back who has heard of the Famous Jug band? Of course you have. Actually if you look at our fabulous vinylseconds.com site, there are relationships on there that occur purely by accident (and you thought we planned it?). Contemporaries of Wizz Jones, who seemed to have a finger in many pies in those days, The Famous Jug band, were, alas, not famous for long.
However, this LP, their first of only two, has certainly left a mark. A good stomping, lady swinging, kick-assing, Saturday night heave-ho, it certainly isn’t. Instead, it’s a finely crafted, melancholic, offering which begs to be listened to carefully. It is filled with music that would be struck up on any Sunday evening deep inside an Irish bar, almost unnoticed, until a gentle hush would descend when the patrons recognised the tunes drifting in their direction. And the evening would re-focus from friends and companionship to the ‘band in the corner’.
It's worthy of a place in anyone’s collection. They may not have lasted long as a recording unit but sometimes when a band has a number of classy songs at their disposal, to have them captured in this way is surely a better legacy than bands who linger long and either fade away or die. And there are plenty who have taken that road…
