Biography
During the 1930s Jack Kelly & His South Memphis Jug Band matched the Memphis Jug Band’s draw and kept performing well into the 1950s, long after most jug ensembles had vanished. Guitarist and singer Jack Kelly assembled the group in the early years of that decade, bringing in fiddler Will Batts, guitarist Dan Sane, and “Doctor” D.M. Higgs on jug. When the musicians first reached the studio in August 1933 they were still billed as Jack Kelly’s Jug Busters. At those New York sessions for American Records Co. they laid down “Red Ripe Tomatoes” and “Believe I’ll Go Back Home,” among other titles. The label issued the sides under the revised name Jack Kelly & His South Memphis Jug Band, and “Highway No. 61 Blues” proved especially successful. Listeners regarded the outfit as the most deeply blues-oriented of the Memphis jug outfits; clubs, hotels, and picnics—frequently for white patrons—kept the musicians steadily employed. Through the remainder of the decade they accumulated more than twenty recordings for American Record Co., Banner, and Vocalion.