Jim Kweskin Band

Mandolinist Rich DelGrosso, Guitarist Mary Flower and multi-instrumentalist Martin Grosswendt have earned steady streams of praise for their outstanding string skills. Combined, these three have earned nine Blues Music Award nominations and enjoyed rave reviews and top festival slots all over the world. And they do strum, pick and bow up a storm together as the Ragpicker String Band – but it's their tight trio harmonies that especially dazzle. The acoustic dream team summons the spirits of everyone from the Mississippi Sheiks and Blind Boy Fuller to Jim Kweskin and R. Crumb as their voices and fingers fly through the mists back to the golden prewar age of folk-blues.

This film by Murray Lerner is a cinematic synthesis of four Newport Folk Festivals in which the art of folk music is pictured in transition during its most crucial years. Performers include Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Georgia Sea Singers, Peter, Paul, & Mary, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Donovan, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, Ed Young Fife & Drum Corps, Jim Kweskin & the Jug Band with Mel Lyman, Sacred Harp Singers, Blue Ridge Mountain Dancers, Tex Logan & The Lilly Brothers, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Odetta, Fred McDowell, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Swan Silvertones, STaple Singers, Freedom Singers, Fannie Lou Hamer, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Howling Wolf.

One of just two albums to be released by the easier-going American equivalent of Richard & Linda Thompson (without the brooding gloom and biting irony), this set includes some virtuoso folk-blues performances, as well as the version of "Brazil" made famous in Terry Gilliam's movie of the same name. Though the ten tunes here are all covers, Geoff & Maria Muldaur treat each as if molded from clay of their own making, just as they had old traditional numbers as members of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. It's probably no coincidence that this album would eventually find its way to Joe Boyd's Hannibal label. It's a collection that suggests the Richard & Linda Thompson albums he would release throughout the '70s. Although it's often difficult to find, many fans will find Pottery Pie more than worth the money and effort.