Blog: Folk Legend Jim Kweskin Teams With The Crockett Sisters on Lummis Day

Folk legend Jim Kweskin who, back in the day, shared stages with Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and The Doors, will join Northeast L.A.’s The Crockett Sisters for a free concert at this year’s Lummis Day Festival on Sunday, June 2 at Heritage Square. 

Kweskin created one of the bedrock guitar styles of the folk revival, adapting the ragtime-blues fingerpicking of artists like Mississippi John Hurt and Blind Boy Fuller to the more complex chords of pop and jazz. In the early 60’s, Kweskin founded the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, with Fritz Richmond, Geoff Muldaur, Bob Siggins and Bruno Wolfe. Maria Muldaur, formerly with the Even Dozen Jug Band, joined the band in 1963. 

Rock historian and NPR contributor Ed Ward once listed the most important bands of the early 1960s as the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Byrds, and the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, adding: "I'm not kidding." No one who knows the Jug Band would have thought he was.

Kweskin released six albums and two greatest hits compilations on Vanguard Records between 1963 and 1970; Jim Kweskin's America on Reprise Records in 1971; and four albums on Mountain Railroad Records between 1978 and 1987.

Alabama-born songwriter Juli Crockett (of Montecito Heights) and her best friend Lisa Dee (of Garvanza) have been creating beautiful harmonies together for almost 10 years. Their voices combine in a way that many have said only those of siblings should, therefore they coined themselves the Crockett Sisters. Having lent their voices to many other musical projects, including the sensational alt-country Evangenitals, the Crockett Sisters embrace the “mind-blowing melding of voices in melodious musical magic.” Anybody who witnessed their collaboration with Jim Kweskin at last fall's Northeast L.A. Obama fundraiser knows what magic is in store. Go to www.crockettsisters.com to read more.