About the Band

Jim Kweskin is probably best known as a singer and bandleader, but he also created one of the bedrock guitar styles of the folk revival, adapting the ragtime-blues fingerpicking of artists like Blind Boy Fuller to the more complex chords of pop and jazz. He has maintained a remarkably consistent musical vision since his jug band days, continuing to explore traditional folk and blues with the sophisticated sensibility of a jazz musician and jazz with the communal simplicity of a folk artist. He has recorded solo ventures, as a member of the U and I band, and with U and I bandmate Samoa Wilson, and continues to perform widely in various formats. In recent years he and Geoff Muldaur have often appeared as a duo, revisiting and expanding on their Jug Band repertoire.

Geoff Muldaur was already a known factor when he joined the jug band, and he went on to lend his soulful vocals and brilliant arranging skills to a wide range of influential groups, from Geoff and Maria to Paul Butterfield's Better Days to his own dazzlingly varied solo ventures. He returned from a dozen-year hiatus in 1998 with the acclaimed Secret Handshake, proving his skills were stronger than ever, and has since been touring widely, recording everything from blues and jug band music to an album of Bix Beiderbecke arranged for horn octet. Fifty years on, his singing remains uniquely powerful; as the English folk-rocker Richard Thompson said: "There are only three white blues singers, and Geoff Muldaur is at least two of them."

Maria Muldaur is best known for her 1974 mega-hit, "Midnight at the Oasis," which received several Grammy Nominations and enshrined her in the hearts of Baby Boomers everywhere. Despite her considerable pop success, her 50-year career could best be described as an adventurous odyssey through various forms of American Roots Music. During the folk revival of the early 60's, she began exploring and singing early Blues, Bluegrass, and Appalachian "Old Timey" music, beginning her recording career in 1963 with the Even Dozen Jug Band. She then joined the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, touring and recording with them throughout the '60's. In the 40 years since "Midnight at the Oasis," Maria has toured extensively worldwide, and recorded 40 solo albums, covering Jazz, Big Band, Gospel, Jug Band Music, settling comfortably into her favorite idiom, Blues, in recent years, and causing her to often be referred to as "The First Lady of American Roots Music." In 2009, Maria revisited her jug band roots with Maria Muldaur and Her Garden of Joy, a Grammy-Nominated jug band album featuring John Sebastian, David Grisman, and Dan Hicks, and talented musicians from the "New Jug Generation."

Bill Keith revolutionized bluegrass banjo playing in the early 1960s with his "melodic" style, becoming the most influential player since Earl Scruggs. He joined the Jug Band in 1964 to expand his jazz and blues skills. That same year co-founded the Beacon Banjo Company, which makes specialized tuning pegs for banjos and guitars. Over the years he has recorded with hundreds of artists and groups, including Jonathan Edwards, Judy Collins, Ian and Sylvia, and personal ventures like Muleskinner, which included David Grisman, Peter Rowan, and fellow Kweskin alumnus Richard Greene. A longtime veteran of the Woodstock music scene, he continues to play there every week with The Saturday Night Bluegrass Band.