Some great old photos of musicians from the Vanishing Georgia collection. These guys look like life was pretty hard.
Cuthbert Brass Band members, Cuthbert, Randolph County, Georgia, sometime between 1880 and 1889. The trombonists look so tough they could kill you and eat your liver with beans and gravy.
The Cuthbert Brass Band used to beat the shit out of this other band and take their sousaphones. That’s why this other band got the silly Musical Wagon with horses going, because their weak little legs couldn’t run fast enough.
Monroe, ca. 1880-1890. Members of this band pose for a group photograph in their musical wagon. Doctor Hammond’s home seen in the background.
Not one of these dudes was ever too drunk to stand. Especially not the guy with the straggly beard wearing the bass drum like a papoose so that the little drummer boy can prop him up long enough to get the shot.
Jug Tavern, [Georgia], 1889. Members of what is reported to be the first band in Jug Tavern. In 1893 the town name was changed to Winder for John H. Winder. He was president of the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad which was built through this area at the time. Members of the band, left to right: Ernest Bush, N.J. Kelly, Jim Griffeth, R.L. Carithers, L.O. Williams, W.L. Bush, J.H. Jackson, W.H. Hosch, W. J. Ross, C.M. Ferguson, and Prof. J.W. McGill who was the teacher.
4 replies on “hard boiled brass”
[…] 16, 2008 by nonotes Apropos of not much, I am weirdly entranced by these photographs of turn-of-the-century brass bands, in Georgia. Soup Greens is right: Some of these musicians look […]
These are great pictures. They make me feel connected as if these fellows lived the music.
Ran across this one tonight, for the “lufkin hoo hoo band”, which has an obvious gurdonark connection:
http://www.lufkindailynews.com/services/content/services/Special_Sections/Anniversary/stories/hoo_hoo_band.html
[…] who lives in Texas, perhaps in the very same town as the Junior Hoo Hoo of the Supreme Nine, for posting the link to this story. This entry was written by Lucas Gonze, posted on December 29, 2008 at 12:06 pm, filed under […]