Few people have done more to advance and celebrate folk music than Jim Kweskin.
At 84, he's been playing folk, jug music and Americana for over 70 years. He started the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, which played the Newport Folk Festival several times and became a huge influence on the folk revival of the '60s in the process. Kweskin's band rubbed off on several upstarts of the time, including Grateful Dead and The Lovin' Spoonful.
In this session, Kweskin joins us to talk about his new album, Doing Things Right, with the Berlin Hall Saturday Night Revue. We'll get a primer on the art of skiffling, a musical tradition involving learning songs to perform in a mix of jazz, blues and folk.
Plus, Kweskin tells us about one of his most famous recordings, "Ladybugs' Picnic," which we'd all count along to on Sesame Street.
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.
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