Down On The Corner

By Paul Moffett

• The 6th Annual National Jug Band Jubilee, set for September 18 at the Brown Foreman Amphitheater in Waterfront Park, will have Jim Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur of the Kweskin Jug Band as headliners. The free festival will also feature jug bands from around the country, with music from 1 pm-11 p.m. Louisville is the acknowledged home of jug bands, which arose in the late 19th Century when African American musicians played music in the streets on improvised instruments, including whiskey jugs, kazoos and washboards. It reached a peak in the mid-Thirties, when it had spread to river towns along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. It has been suggested that Louisville's severe restrictions against busking (performing in the street for money) came about because of the desire to protect white Derby attendees from black jug bands. For more information, check www.jugbandjubilee.com

• Kathy Weisbach, owner and manager (and floor-sweeper, too, no doubt) of the low-power AM radio station Crescent Hill Radio (AM 1650), is looking for recordings from Louisville and regional musicians to play on her station, which is also available as stream via ye olde Internets. Check her site at http://www.chradio.net/. Wiesbach has had the station on the air only since April of this year; even so, she's rapidly building an audience over the web. (Listeners in the broadcast area are not so easily enumerated.) Her AM signal only reaches a mile or less around the transmitter.

However, she is looking for musical content for the station, either in the form of CDs or other digital media and programs, again focused on Louisville-area music. No restrictions on the genre; she'll play all styles, though the heavy rockers and metalheads might tend to be played later at night. At the moment, the Kyana Blues Society's president, Gary Sampson, has an all-blues show up and running.

She is asking for permission to play the content without remuneration, as the station does not sell advertising, so if that's a problem, don't send her your content.

Stop by her site for contact information.

• Fox Network's "So You Think You Can Dance" quasi-reality show will be on tour in the fall and will stop off in Louisville on October 23 at ... wait for it ….Yum! Arena.

• The recently completed DVD of Tim Krekel on "Jammin' At Hippie Jack's," recorded at the Tennessee State Museum, shown at on Wednesday, July 21, 7:30 p.m., in the auditorium at the Clifton Cultural Center, 2117 Payne St. The DVD is for sale at ear X-tacy. A portion of the proceeds will benefit MERF.

• The National Quartet Convention, which has been staged annually in September in Freedom Hall for some time now, is, arguably, the largest live music event in Louisville. The week-long event brings some 40,000 attendees over that seven days. The economic impact, according to the Kentucky Exposition Center's marketing department, is $8 million annually. The HullabaLOU and Forecastle festivals might outdraw in terms of total guests, but their economic impact is yet to be determined.

• In case you missed the news, My Morning Jacket will be performing with the Louisville Youth Orchestra at the Yum! Arena on October 29. Wax Fang will open. MMJ will donate $1 from each ticket to the LYO. Tickets will be $45 general admission and will go on sale on August 14. There will be a special General Admission sale at ear x-tacy two days before the show.

CODAS

O'Bannon, Edwin "Butch", 55, died July 17 in Louisville. He was the trombonist for "The MR. Wonderful Production Band."

Phelps, John V, 36, died on July 19 in Elizabethtown, Ky. He was a former singer for the rock band Blackroom.

Reed, Margaret Fante, 86, died in Louisville on July 7, 2010. She was a violinist who performer with the original Louisville Symphony Orchestra, The Jewish Community Center Orchestra, The Kling Chamber Orchestra and the Melotones, a senior jazz orchestra

Ervin, Dennis, 54, died in Louisville on July 26. He was a guitarist and founder of the Dennis Ervin Band.