July 10, 2007 - Pigs Newsletter #4

Dear Dancing Pigs fans and friends and relatives,

If you're interested in the old newsletters, we've added previous ones to the newsletter signup page at http://www.cincinnatidancingpigs.com/newsletter.html

Upcoming gigs of ours include the following events:

1. The Queen City Balladeers Edensong 2007 - Friday, July 20 - 8:00pm - Seasongood Pavilion in Eden Park.  See http://www.qcballadeers.org/SpecEvents.htm for more information.  This is one of four consecutive Friday night concerts, starting July 6th.  The Queen City Balladeers organization is directly responsible for the Pigs still playing today and three of us were members when the club was in the bloom of its youth.  Eric Buhrer played in one of the first shows with the precursor of the Pigs, a group called "The Mill Creek Revolutionary Marching Jug Band."  Playing with us on Friday night are some friends of ours, Ma Crow and the Mother Pluckers. The Mother Pluckers include Natalie Cunningham, who occasionally steps in for our bass player Tom Beck, when he is not available.

2.  2nd Annual Appalachian Heritage Days - Miami Whitewater Forest - Saturday, August 11, 1:00pm.  This will be the first time we play for this event.  We should have details about this in the next newsletter, including who else will be playing there and the hours of the musical show.

New things on our website:

- There are new pictures of the monthly drawing by Kristen Pattison on the board outside of Arnold's when we play on the first Saturday of the month.  See http://www.cincinnatidancingpigs.com/see.html for Kristen's drawing from our July performance.  Once we have enough drawings by Kristen, they will have their own page on the web site.  Look for new ones after every first Saturday of the month.  There's also one new picture of a traditional "Bod Girl", this one from The Belle Of Louisville riverboat when we played for the Louisville Jug Band Jubilee kickoff. 

Other newsworthy Pig Events:

- A section for the web site is being planned, where we will publish original limericks which the audience at Arnold's makes up and performs during the 3rd set.  We encourage you to submit original limericks to this email address: mailto:limericks@cincinnatidancingpigs.com.  They can be ones for us to perform, or ones you've already done at Arnold's.  Limericks are 5 lines long, with a rhyming scheme of aabba.  Here are some of the more tame examples, the first one for encouragement, the others real ones that were written by the audience:

It's time for you Pig fans to write (a)
A limerick with all of your might. (a)
Show us your skill (b)
And we promise you will (b)
Be rewarded with fame on our web site. (a)

An actor named Mel caused some friction
Blaming Jews for his Lord's crucifixion.
When pulled over with booze
He said, Blame the Hebrews
And not my tequila addiction. 

George Bush woke up on Easter Sunday
And found he was in bed with Condi.
He said, "If Laura knew
That I'd slept with you,
She'd jump into Obama's Undies."

Arnolds is an old bar in town
A good place to go when you're down.
Jack'll help you unwind -
Check Abe from behind,
Or sit in the courtyard and frown.
(editor's note: Jack and Abe are two bartenders at Arnolds,
and this was written by a female musician)

The courtyard is where music's played
And outrageous antics displayed.
The band holds up cards
And act like retards
And people spend hours, waylaid.

And now, here are memories by Pig bassist Tom Beck about his experiences in playing with Cincinnati blues legend, Pigmeat Jarrett.  Note that Tom does an old Blind Boy Fuller song with the Pigs titled "Pigmeat" - ask Tom when you see us playing, or write him, about the colloquial meaning of "Pigmeat."

Pigmeat and Tom Beck

In a previous incarnation, our bass player Tom Beck had the good fortune to play for two years with a local blues legend, Pigmeat Jarrett.  Pigmeat was born right around 1900 on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia.  He was a member of the Geechee tribe, former slaves who maintained some mixture of their African heritage and language.  Pigmeat would still speak some Geechee well into his 90's. 

Tom and Jay Miller hooked up with Pigmeat during his happy hour gig at a pub called Cory's (now Mad Frog) in Clifton.  They played to packed crowds, and had a great old roaring time.  Pigmeat was quite happy to have a small renaissance in his career, well into his 90s.  After about six months of playing together, Pigmeat got an invitation to play the Chicago Blues Fest in 1992.  Pigmeat, Jay, and Tom played for a live crowd of about 10,000 people in Grant Park in downtown Chicago, then played an evening set at Rosa's, one of Chicago's blues mainstay clubs.  The crowd wouldn't let Pigmeat off the stage!  This was quite an experience for Tom, a Norwegian bachelor farmer from Minnesota.

Pigmeat was the last of a very old school of boogie blues piano players.  (Cincinnati recently lost another younger boogie player, Big Joe Duskin).  Pigmeat first made money playing music in 1919!  He had a unique, earthy, story-telling, blues style that captured audiences.  He had a twinkle in his eyes right up to the end, and had amazing energy for a man in his 90s (and a smoker).  Tom never forgets sweating away trying to keep up with him.  Then Pigmeat would look over and say "You young boys tryin' to kill 'ol Pigmeat, ha ha ha."  It was a unique experience in Tom's musical life!

Pigmeat did the cabaret circuit in the 1920s, and had his own entertainment band.  He was a boxer who sparred with Ezzard Charles.  There is a city ordinance banning Pigmeat from boxing since he was known as a head-butter.  Pigmeat ran moonshine whiskey in the 1920s and was shot by police.  He was treated for the wound by a veterinarian in Kentucky.  He played with such blues luminaries as Bessie Smith and John Lee Hooker.  His is sorely missed by Tom (aka Swinestein).  Pigmeat performed at Tall Stacks in 1992 one week after having major hernia surgery (at the age of 93). 

Pigmeat died of liver cancer on 9/5/95 at the age of 95.  Upon his death, the current local boogie blues master, Ricky Nye, said "At least he didn't die of old age."


Coming up in the next newsletter:

- If we can get it together, a first attempt will be made at "A History of The Cincinnati Dancing Pigs".  Future efforts for this worthy cause will be to obtain and publish those old, antique Pig Pictures and to try and include pictures of every former member of the band, and potential interviews with them about their Pig memories.

Standard stuff in every newsletter:

Also coming up as usual,  the Cincinnati Dancing Pigs are performing at Arnold's Bar and Grill in Cincinnati, on Saturday, August 4th and Saturday, September 1st.  A map of how to get there is available by clicking on the "Directions" link in the "Upcoming Gigs" section of our web site: http://www.cincinnatidancingpigs.com/upcoming.html

Remember, the Pigs are always at Arnold's on the FIRST Saturday of the month, unless something dire happens, in which case it will be announced in our Gigs section of the website.

If you ever would like to unsubscribe to the Pigs newsletter, and really, we don't mind if you don't want to get it, send an email to ThePigs@cincinnatidancingpigs.com with "Unsubscribe" or similar words in the subject, or reply to this newsletter, with the same kind of subject.

Thanks,

The Pigs

--
Dance & Dine
With Ye Syncopated Swine

Musical entertainment for parties, shows, mizvahs, cotillions, weddings, orgies & wakes.