At age 84, Jim Kweskin should be declared a national cultural treasure. For much of his celebrated career, he has been dutifully keeping the cherished jazz, blues, and folk music of yesteryear robustly alive. He did that first with his popular Jug Band back in the 1960s. Now he does the same with the Berlin Hall Saturday Night Revue.
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More milestones are about to be added to Kweskin's remarkable musical odyssey. On February 25, 2025, 'Right Or Wrong," the Western-swing tinged first single from his upcoming album, Doing Things Right (Jalopy Records), will be released. Then, on March 26, the second single, "Four or Five Times," drops. Finally, on April 25, the 14-track album itself will be released. Kweskin's legions of ever-loyal fans can't wait.
"Like any musician, I want people to like [the album], that's all," Kweskin observed. "I want them to enjoy it and I want them to play it over and over again and listen to it more than once. Maybe listen to the whole album. People don't do that much anymore."
The album features five-time Grammy winner Cindy Cashdollar, Samoa Wilson, Annie Linders, Racky Thomas, and Matt Leavenworth. They will be performing at Club Passim in Cambridge, Mass., on April 8, and at the Jalopy Theater in Brooklyn, N.Y., on April 11.
The Songs On 'Doing Things Right' Have A Rich History
Per a press release, "'...Right Or Wrong' [was] first recorded by Sizemore and Bias in 1921...." "Four or Five Times" also boasts a vintage pedigree. The tune was "...drawn from a 1927 recording by Byron Sturges...."
Kweskin recently talked to Wide Open Country about his abiding love of music, the joy of presenting the songs of a bygone era to a contemporary audience, and the film A Complete Unknown, the buzzy biopic about Bob Dylan and his lively milieu.
Listen To 'Right Or Wrong'
How Jim Kweskin Got His Start
Born in Stamford, Connecticut on July 18, 1940, Jim Kweskin developed an affinity for music very early in life. His dad owned a collection of 78rpm records by singing greats of the day like Bessie Smith, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway, and Louis Armstrong. The young Kweskin was utterly mesmerized.
He recalled, "I just started listening to these records that my father had and I fell in love with them. I was 6, 7 years old." He had piano and trumpet lessons, but it was his aptitude for the guitar that really took hold.
He Was An Up-And_Coming Star On The Club Circuit
When asked how he decided to make music his full-time career, Kweskin said that choice kind of evolved organically. He was in Boston playing music, going to college, and performing. "It just kept on going," he summarized. The folk music club scene in places like youth-centric college town Cambridge, Massachusetts, was bustling. Club 47 and other intimate venues were fertile stomping grounds for young, emerging musicians like Kweskin.
"When I was coming up," Kweskin explained, "I was fortunate to be playing a kind of music that was popular on the radio. I wasn't playing music like the Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul, and Mary. I was playing more traditional folk music, but it gave me venues to perform in."
Kweskin Values And Emphasizes The Intensely Collaborative Nature Of His Music-Making
"I like doing records with other musicians so it's not just a Jim Kweskin record. It was always this shared group music. That's the way I like it and that's what this album is. Always have."
In 2024, Kweskin released an album titled Never Too Late: Duets With My Friends (StorySound Records). He sang one track, the Irving Berlin-written "You're Just In Love," with his beloved granddaughter, Fiona. What was it like for Kweskin to record with this young phenom who is so dear to him?
"She's a great artist. She has a beautiful voice. It's a treat for me. It warms my heart. I love it."
Covering Versus 'Uncovering' A Song
I loved this sweet anecdote that Jim Kweskin kindly shared with me. "If you do a song that somebody else wrote, or that somebody else is known for, or was popular doing it, it's called covering it. You cover a song when somebody else did it before you. I do songs that are so old, the last time it was recorded may be in the 1930s or older. I was talking to an audience sometime not long ago and I said, 'Hey, if I'm doing a song that was first recorded in 1927, am I covering it?' And someone in the audience said, 'No, you're un-covering it.'"
His Philosophy Of Doing Vintage Folk Classics
Kweskin said, "We find these great old songs that people never heard and bring them back to life. That's my mission in life. One of my missions in life is to teach people and play music from these great songs that have been around for a long time."
He explained his approach. "I don't try to copy anybody else's style or do the song life somebody else did it. I have a reverence for the song itself, but I can only do it [with] what's inside of me. It comes from who I am. There are some people who try to imitate the old artists. That's not me."
