Leaving the bayou.

Introducing the

NEW HAW LEANS        

JUGBAND b

Thursday evening and after filling a corncob pipe and siphoning off a jug of applejack, I got my shoes out of the pawn shop and loaded up my Model ‘T’ Ford pickup. I hitched up my dungarees and stuck a sawn-off in my belt. It was time to leave the bayou once and for all and head on down to the Riverside Club, Staines.

I was ready to face Jim Boy, Precious Pierre, Alex, Ewan the New’un, Al the hat and Washboard Steve: a more dangerous bunch of outlaws as you could ever meet in these parts.

 

Why on earth did I do that review back in August?
Yee-Haw

Why did I ever describe Al the Hat as looking like @#&4££@& or Washboard Steve as being like a @#£$%@%##?

 

How did I ever think I was going to get away with it? 


I was quaking in my newly redeemed swampshoes when I got to the club. Luckily for me, the formidable bouncers on the door have a strict rule – all firearms to be deposited in the cloakroom.

I got away with it, although I could see the band were looking to get even.

Al the Hat seemed to have sampled some of that co-kay-een they kept singing about. Either that or they finally turned his mike on. Last week I would have loved to have seen him in ‘The Weydown Rhythym and Blues Band’ (he plays for them in disguise) but as they were appearing at Weybridge Conservative Club it was never going to happen. Heck, you wouldn’t get me in there if……well you just wouldn’t get me in there. That’s a mean harp, Al.

Something very frightening has been going on with Washboard Steve as well. He’s acquired a second washboard with a bell and attachments. Good vocals Steve.

Also Alex was sporting a pair of two-tone shoes that probably means

The First National

Building  Society of Surrey

has been held up again.

I was beginning to pine for the trusty sawnoff as they flew through ‘The Man of Constant Sorrow’ and there wasn’t a sharecropper in the hall with a dry eye as they played that well-loved ‘Country Death Song’; ‘Whiskey in my Whiskey:

“I put a whiskey in my Whiskey

And put heartbreak in my heart,

Put my boots on the old dancefloor

And put three rounds in my ‘44”

 

They don’t write them like that anymore.

Well actually sometimes they do – there was a smattering of originals and even something from ‘The Rollin’ Stones’ – a group of youngsters not from hereabouts.

It sounded like they had a busy summer; there was a lot of really good musicianship and a few snatches of mighty fine Acapella.

Mind you, as the evening went on I began to question whether the Juggies actually were from Memphis.

Still, when the Bourbon dried up (I’d been distilling the Jack Daniels all week in the back yard) and all the tissues had gone, I checked the sawnoff out and headed back up the bayou.

Boy, those mangroves had a melancholy air by moonlight.

If I’m well enough, Friday night (Keep The Faith) is going to be a wild night of Northern Soul. We’ll see.

Feet don’t fail me now!

 
This next picture is by special request from the Riverside Club's Webmaster;

 

Neil Harris
(a don't stop till  you drop production)