Background on Jim Kweskin
Born on July 18, 1940 in Stamford, Connecticut to Yale and Florence Kweskin, Jim Kweskin has been a music lover all of his life. His initial interest in music came from listening to his father’s collection of jazz 78s, which would also influence Jim’s collecting tendencies. Jim enrolled at Boston University in 1958, where he became a part of the growing folk revival occurring in Cambridge. Fellow musicians Jim Rooney, Joan Baez, Eric Von Schmidt, Betsy Siggins, Fritz Richmond, Tom Rush and others were active in the Boston-Cambridge folk scene at this time. Attending shows in coffee houses and seeing others playing, Jim was inspired to learn guitar. After hearing Eric Von Schmidt play at Club Passim (then known as Club Mount Auburn 47) around 1960, Jim realized that it was possible to mix jazz and folk together; inspired by this, he developed a a fingerpicking style infused with jazz elements for which he became famous.
Jim had traveled in California for a while before driving cross-country back to Cambridge in the winter of 1962. It was around this time that he formed the Jug Band with an initial lineup consisting of Fritz Richmond, Geoff Muldaur, Bob Siggins, and Bruno Wolfe; later incarnations of the band included Maria Muldaur, Mel Lyman, Bill Keith, and Richard Greene. Modernizing pre-World War II rural music, the Jug Band quickly gained a following. Between 1963 and 1968 the Jug Band released several albums, including Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band - Unblushing Brassiness (1963); Jug Band Music (1965); and See Reverse Side for Title (1966) on Vanguard; then Garden Of Joy (1967) on Reprise Records; as well as several compilations through the years. While signed with Vanguard, Jim also released non-Jug Band albums Relax Your Mind (1965) and Jump for Joy (1967).
The Jug Band quickly became popular, making numerous appearances in New England, including the 1963 Hootenanny at Carnegie Hall with Phil Ochs and others. The group was also on television, appearing on The Steve Allen Show and The Tonight Show. Aside from regular shows at Club 47 and other popular coffee houses, Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band played at the Newport Folk Festival from 1965 to 1967. Famously, Mel Lyman took to the stage after Bob Dylan’s controversial set to perform “Rock of Ages” on harmonica to calm the riled up crowd.
Despite their success, the Jug Band disbanded in 1968. Jim was with Mel Lyman during the formation of the Fort Hill Community, a commune founded in 1967 in the Fort Hill section of Roxbury in Boston. The community had various creative outlets, including publishing an underground newspaper called Avatar, and Jim, Mely Lyman, and The Lyman Family released two albums during this time: American Avatar (1969) and Jim Kweskin's America (1971), both released on Reprise Records. Eventually Fort Hill would become known for building and restoring houses, a business which evolved into Fort Hill Construction. Jim was involved in this house construction aspect of the Fort Hill Community, and although it led to him performing and recording less, he put out Jim Kweskin Lives Again (1977); Side By Side (1979); and the children’s album Swing On A Star (1979) through Mountain Railroad Records. He also performed with the U & I Band, which consisted of people from Fort Hill, including Geordie and Anthony Gude, Rose Geurin, Ray Charles Lyman, Gabriel Peper, and Samoa Wilson. In 1986, the U & I Band played with Pete Seeger at the Clearwater Festival.
Starting in the early aughts, Jim actively returned to music, performing solo and with friends. One of the acts that Jim performed with during this time was the Jim Kweskin Band with Samoa Wilson. Jim and Samoa recorded a couple of albums together on Blix Street Records including Now and Again (2003), Live the Life (2004), and more recently I Just Want to Be Horizontal (2020) on Kingswood Records. Jim also performed with Meredith Axelrod, Suzy Thompson, Happy Traum, Juli Crockett and her bands, and others. One of Jim’s frequent performance collaborators is his old Jug Band friend, Geoff Muldaur; together, the two released the album Penny’s Farm (2016), and both performed in The Texas Sheiks
There were brief reunions of members of the Jug Band in 2006 as part of tribute performances for Fritz Richmond, the Jug Band’s jug and wash tub player who passed away at the end of 2005. Jim Kweskin, Geoff Muldaur, Maria Muldaur, and Bill Keith reunited again in 2013 to embark on a 50th anniversary reunion tour, which took them across the United States and to Japan. Jim would visit Japan several times on tours, including for tribute concerts in 2005 after Fritz Richmond’s passing and a tour with Samoa Wilson.
Jim’s recent albums, Never Too Late: Duets With My Friends (2024) and Doing Things Right (2025), feature frequent collaborators such as Maria Muldaur, Samoa Wilson, Meredith Axelrod, and Suzy Thompson, as well as his granddaughter, Fiona Kweskin.
Jim continues to tour and perform.
