I Go to Cleveland for a Jug Band Movie and Spend the Night in a Hotel

Saturday, I went up to Cleveland to introduce Chasin’ Gus’ Ghost – a new documentary by Todd Kwait about the past, present and future of jug band music – at the Cleveland International Film Festival. Todd and his wife, Carol, are extremely nice people and the film is very good. It combines a lot of vintage footage of bands like the Lovin’ Spoonful and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band with contemporary interviews with John Sebastian, Jim Kweskin, Geoff and Maria Muldaur, Bob Weir, the late Fritz Richmond and others. There is background of the history of the jug bands from Memphis and Louisville, especially Gus Cannon and Sleepy John Estes. They also visited jug band festivals in the U.S. and, oddly (though maybe not) Japan.

Here’s the trailer:

I left my house early because we had a lot of snow and, as the day progressed, a lot of snow turned into a certified blizzard. So I introduced the film, handed out Folk Alley stickers and spent the night at a hotel. All in a day’s work.

Click through for a video that includes pics of the snow and a cheerleading competition (some of the girls were staying in my hotel).