Image No. 63-12-23: Fritz Richmond on washtub bass Club 47, Cambridge, Mass., December 1963 When he got out of the Army in 1962, Fritz played first with the Charles River Valley Boys and later with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, as well as backing and recording with many other performers. Able to coax a two-octave range from his washtub bass, in his lifetime Fritz was uncontested as the best washtub bass player in the world. (He died in 2005.) One of his tubs is in the Smithsonian Institution. On this snowy night in Cambridge, Fritz and I stopped by the Club 47 to see who was playing. Before long, Fritz donned his trademark Vicks-bottle-blue-lensed granny glasses and joined in. (The section of stovepipe by the tub is one of Fritz's wind instruments.)

Image No. 63-12-29: Jamming at the 47 Club 47, Cambridge, Mass., December 1963 At the Club 47, musicians often put together one-time combinations that were never recorded. We'd like to have a tape of this spontaneous group, in which Fritz Richmond (washtub) and Geoff Muldaur (washboard) of the Kweskin Jug Band accompany Al Wilson, later of Canned Heat, a young man who knew almost every blues ever recorded and could sing and play most of them on either the guitar or harmonica.

Image No. 64-21-4 Fritz Richmond and Mel Lyman Kweskin Jug Band performance Sanders Theater, Cambridge, Mass., November 1964 Before he turned to antique ceramic jugs, Fritz got a darn good sound from plastic.