If you love jug band music, swing, or just hot music, this album means good times ahead. These old masters bridge the jug band/swing era with a set of exciting, energetic tracks. As usual, they freely adopt songs popularized by a wide range of others: here, Ikey Robinson, Merle Haggard, Bob Wills, the Mills brothers, and even Aram Khachaturian.

For anyone unfamiliar with the Juggernauts, any description is likely to sound strange.
Cole Porter’s “Let’s Misbehave” begins with a tasteful washboard pushing a swing vocal; this moves into a slightly wandering slide whistle solo of the melody; other voices gradually emerge beneath the vocal, and the song ends with a jazz guitar solo. The effect is usually not zany enough to evoke memories of the Hoosier Hotshots, and is far smoother than classic jug band music. Perhaps the best comparison, still not apt, is the Red Clay Ramblers gone jug band.

This said, several tracks (“Whoa Babe”, “Get With It”, “My Window Faces the South” etc.) are simply good swing covers. But it’s hard to imagine any other band doing Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance” in a version featuring slightly out of tune, nose-thumbing percussion, and a voice periodically interjecting “lookadat, lookadat, lookadat!”
The band swings furthest out on the Ikey Robinson “My Four Reasons”. Plectrum banjo, and percussion power this energetic version, with interjections by jug, kazoo, scat singing, bird whistles, train whistle, and god knows what else. Here and on other tracks, Roscoe Goose provides wonderful jug; here, a mile-a-minute.
That kind of energy and spirit has powered the Juggernauts since their founding in the 60’s; this album shows them hotter than ever. --SL