Between 1927 and 1934 various African-American musicians in the Memphis, Tenn., area grouped around singer, song writer, guitarist, and harmonica player Will Shade (also known as Son Brimmer). The personnel of this jug band varied from day to day, with Shade booking gigs and arranging recording sessions.
Among the recorded members were (at various times) Will Shade (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Charlie Burse (pronounced Bursey) (guitar, mandolin, and vocals), Charlie Nickerson (piano and vocals), Charlie Pierce (violin), Charlie Polk (jug), Tewee Blackman (vocals, guitar), “Hambone” Lewis (jug), Jab Jones (jug, piano, vocals ), Johnny Hodges/Hardge (piano), Ben Ramey (vocals and kazoo), Casey Bill Weldon (guitar and vocals), Memphis Minnie (guitar and vocals), Vol Stevens (vocals, violin, and mandolin), Milton Robie (violin), Otto Gilmore/Gilmer (drums and woodblocks), and Robert Burse (drums). Vocals were also provided by Hattie Hart, Memphis Minnie, Jennie Mae Clayton (Shade’s wife), and Minnie Wallace, with Charlie Burse often contributing beautiful harmony parts to Shade’s lead vocal lines. In the case of Memphis Minnie, the Memphis Blues Band accompanied her on two sides for Victor Records, recorded in 1930 when the band's career was "winding down".
The attributed names of the group led by Shade on various recording labels vary quite a bit, but recent scholarly consensus has led writers to compile all of these works under the over-arching rubric of the Memphis Jug Band. In addition to that name, alternative names found on record labels include the Picaninny Jug Band, Memphis Sanctified Singers, the Carolina Peanut Boys, the Dallas Jug Band, the Memphis Sheiks, the Jolly Jug Band and recordings credited to the individual performers Hattie Hart, Minnie Wallace, Casey Bill Weldon, Charlie Nickerson, Vol Stevens, Charlie Burse, “Poor Jab” Jones, and Will Shade, but actually performed with accompaniment by other Memphis Jug Band members.
Musically their large membership pool allowed the Memphis Jug Band the flexibility to play a mixture of ballads, dance tunes, knock-about novelty numbers, and blues. Some of their songs mention hoodoo magical beliefs, and some members also contributed to gospel recordings, either uncredited or as part of the Memphis Sanctified Singers.
The Memphis Jug Band has been described as having a remarkable sound due in part to the unusual instruments. Although most songs included a rhythm guitar and either a jug, a kazoo or a harmonica as a lead instrument or sometimes a mandolin or violin. The sound of the instruments ofen conveyed a "raspy, buzzing sound" that a Briish music scholar who did not know the band personally stated was close to the musical aesthetic of Africa, and in which, he said, the jug and kazoo represented the voices of animals or ancestral spirits. Shade never told scholars why he liked this sound, and since many of the performers were also part Native American, it is a good question as to which ancestors—if any—the kazoo was supposed to represent.
The Memphis Jug Band played wherever they could find engagements, and busked in local parks. They were popular among white as well as black audiences.
In total, they made more than eighty recordings, first for Victor Records, then—as the Picaninny Jug Band—for the Champion-Gennett label, and finally for OKeh Records. The Victor recordings were made in Memphis and Atlanta, Georgia between 1927 and 1930, the Champion-Gennetts in Richmond, Indiana in August 1932, while the final sessions on Okeh were held in Chicago in November 1934. By that time, their style of music was no longer in demand, and Shade was no longer able to keep the musicians assembled as a group, although many of the individuals carried on working around Memphis until the 1940s.
In 1963 Shade recorded one last time with another Memphian, 79-year-old Gus Cannon, former leader of Cannon’s Jug Stompers, another popular jug band. They recorded the album Walk Right In, on Stax Records, a result of The Rooftop Singers having made Cannon's "Walk Right In" into a number one single. Will Shade on jug and former Memphis Jug Band member Milton Roby on washboard perform a series of thirteen traditional songs, plus Cannon's great hit "Walk Right In," including "Narration," "Kill It," "Salty Dog," "Going Around," "The Mountain," "Ol' Hen", "Gonna Raise A Ruckus Tonight," "Ain't Gonna Rain No More," "Boll-Weevil," "Come On Down To My House," "Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor," "Get Up In The Morning Soon," and "Crawdad Hole." The album is almost an audio documentary tour through different corners of Cannon's life and career that, ideally, might've run to several volumes.
Bumble Bee Blues
Memphis Jug Band Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Won't you please come back to me
Bumble bee bumble bee
Please come back to me
He got the best old stinger any bumble bee that I ever seen
He stung me this morning, I been looking for him all day long
He stung me this morning, I been looking for him all day long
I can't stand to hear him buzz, buzz, buzz
Come in, bumble bee, want you to stop your fuss
You're my bumble bee and you know your stuff
Oh, sting me, bumble bee, until I get enough
You's my bumble bee and you're needed here at home
He stung me this morning, I been looking for him all day long
Sometimes he makes me happy, then sometimes he makes me cry
Sometimes he makes me happy, then sometimes he makes me cry
He had me to the place once, I wish to God that I could die
The Memphis Jug Band's song "Bumble Bee Blues" is a classic example of the popular blues style of the 1920s and 30s. The lyrics describe the singer's longing for their bumble bee, who they believe to be the best bumble bee around due to its impressive stinger. The song has a simple and catchy structure that revolves around its refrain, "Bumble bee bumble bee, won't you please come back to me?"
The singer has been stung by their bumble bee earlier in the day, and is now searching for it. Their desire for the bee is so strong that they hate to see it leave home. They also can't stand to hear it buzz, but they need it to sting them until they are satisfied. The singer admits that the bumble bee can make them both happy and sad, and that at one point it had driven them to the brink of despair.
Overall, "Bumble Bee Blues" uses the metaphor of a bumble bee to represent a lover who is both desirable and potentially hurtful. The song speaks to the universal experience of being in a tumultuous relationship and the longing for that which causes pain.
Line by Line Meaning
Bumble bee bumble bee
The singer is calling out to a bumble bee.
Won't you please come back to me
The singer is asking the bumble bee to return to them.
He got the best old stinger any bumble bee that I ever seen
The singer thinks that the bumble bee has the best stinger of any they've seen.
He stung me this morning, I been looking for him all day long
The artist was stung by the bumble bee earlier in the day and has been searching for it since.
Lord, it got me to the place, hate to see my bumble bee leave home
The artist feels upset and lost without the bumble bee and doesn't want it to leave again.
I can't stand to hear him buzz, buzz, buzz
The singer loves the sound of the bumble bee's buzzing.
Come in, bumble bee, want you to stop your fuss
The singer wants the bumble bee to be calm and come back to them.
You're my bumble bee and you know your stuff
The artist thinks that the bumble bee is the best at what it does.
Oh, sting me, bumble bee, until I get enough
The artist wants to keep being stung by the bumble bee until they've had their fill.
You's my bumble bee and you're needed here at home
The bumble bee is important to the artist and they want it to stay with them.
Sometimes he makes me happy, then sometimes he makes me cry
The singer has a complicated relationship with the bumble bee – it can bring either happiness or pain.
He had me to the place once, I wish to God that I could die
The bumble bee had made the artist feel a certain way in the past and they wish they could experience that feeling again.
Contributed by Nicholas I. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Son Brimmer
love this song!
Emilio Pradilla Fonrodona
♡