Gus Cannon

Gustavus "Gus" Cannon (September 12, 1883 – October 15, 1979) was an American blues musician who helped to popularize jug bands (such as his own Cannon's Jug Stompers) in the 1920s and 1930s. There is uncertainty about his birth year; his tombstone gives the date as 1874.

Career Born on the Henderson Newells Plantation in Red Banks, Mississippi, Cannon's childhood consisted of moves to various plantations throughout the Red Banks-Victoria area. At the age of 12, he moved a hundred miles to Clarksdale, then the home of W. C. Handy, to aid his brother, Tom, sharecrop cotton. His brothers, of which he had nine, exposed Cannon to music. They spent much time singing folksongs and performing traditional string band tunes together, utilizing the fiddle, guitar, and banjo.

Cannon left Clarksdale around 1907 and soon settled near Memphis, Tennessee, where he sharecropped on Dillehunt's plantation and played in a jug band led by Jim Guffin. He began playing in Memphis with Jim Jackson. During this time, the two musicians were also involved in medicine shows, performing as blackface minstrels. He met the harmonica player Noah Lewis, who introduced him to a young guitar player and blues singers, Ashley Thompson around 1910.

Cannon is also acknowledged to have been an early mentor to Johnny Cash after Cash arrived in Memphis in 1954.

Cannon made a few recordings for Folkways Records in 1956. During the blues revival of the 1960s, he made some appearances at colleges and coffee houses with Furry Lewis and Bukka White, but he had to pawn his banjo to pay his heating bill the winter before The Rooftop Singers had a hit with "Walk Right In."

In the wake of becoming a hit composer, he recorded an album for Stax Records in 1963, with fellow Memphis musicians Will Shade (the former leader of the Memphis Jug Band) on jug and Milton Roby on washboard. Cannon performed traditional songs, including "Kill It," "Salty Dog," "Going Around," "The Mountain," "Ol' Hen," "Gonna Raise a Ruckus Tonight," "Ain't Gonna Rain No More," "Boll-Weevil," "Come On down to My House," "Make Me a Pallet on Your Floor," "Get Up in the Morning Soon," and "Crawdad Hole," along with his own "Walk Right In," with stories and introductions between songs.

Cannon appeared in the film Hallelujah! (1929), produced by King Vidor, in the late-night wedding scene.

Cannon's Jug Stompers The Jug Stompers of Cannon were among the most successful jug bands to come out of Memphis in the late 1920s and helped to popularize jug band music in the early days of recording. After the success of the Memphis Jug Band's first records, he quickly assembled a jug band, Cannon's Jug Stompers, featuring Lewis and Thompson (later replaced by Elijah Avery),

Discography Studio albums Cannon & Lewis ( The 78 Rounds Society ltd, 2025) Walk Right In (Stax, 1963) Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers (Roots, 1971)

Compilations Cannon's Jug Stompers, The Complete Works in Chronological Order 1927–1930 including Gus Cannon as Banjo Joe (Herwin, 1975) Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vols. 1 and 2 (Document, 1990) The Legendary 1928–1930 Recordings (JSP, 1994) The Best of Cannon's Jug Stompers (Yazoo, 2001)