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Anybody know this musician
Fritz Richmond, 66, a Master of the Jug and Washtub Bass, Is Dead
PORTLAND, Ore., Nov. 23 (AP)
Fritz Richmond, a folk musician considered one of the world's finest players of the jug and washtub bass, died here on Sunday. He was 66.
The cause was lung cancer, Geoff Muldaur, a former bandmate in the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, said in an announcement.
Born in Newton, Mass., Mr. Richmond became a key figure in the folk music scene in Boston, where he worked as the house bassist at Club 47.
Drawing on his expertise as an Army helicopter mechanic, he strung the washtub bass with a steel cable, turning it into a usable instrument. To play it, he developed his own steel-and-rawhide gloves.
He won national attention in 1963 with the Kweskin band. Only when he joined the band did he learn that he would be playing the jug as well as washtub bass. None of the members of the band knew the instrument firsthand; Mr. Richmond learned how to play it from scratchy old records.
Mr. Muldaur said Mr. Richmond was an innovator who, among other things, suggested the Lovin' Spoonful's name and was the first to wear the granny glasses with tiny colored lenses later favored by many other musicians. While most wore the glasses to be trendy, Mr. Muldaur said, Mr. Richmond wore them to hide the fact that the exertion of blowing the jug made him go cross-eyed.
In the early 1970's, he moved to Los Angeles, where he engineered albums for Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and others. After moving to Portland in 1977, he taught recording classes and played in the Metropolitan Jug Band and with his own ensemble, Fritz Richmond's Barbecue Orchestra. He also appeared on "A Prairie Home Companion" and toured with John Sebastian's J-Band and with Mr. Muldaur.
The Smithsonian Institution has one of Mr. Richmond's washtub basses in its collection.
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