Gus Cannon

Active in the 1920s, jug band blues progenitor Gus Cannon made these recordings for Stax in 1963. By the time of his discovery by the label, Cannon had sold his banjo for coal. The banjo playing here, as well as jug band blues itself, points to the wide range of styles that made up blues music, a fact often obscured by the many carbon-copy blues robots of modern times.