Uncorked

The release of "UNCORKED" marks the silver anniversary of that momentary lapse of sanity grown to ubiquious proportions, known as The Christmas Jug Band. This milestone recording was richly engineered by the great FRED CATERO (Pointer Sisters, Santana, Barbra Streisand's "People." Sly & the Family Stone, Big Brother & The Holding Co.'s "Cheap Thrills") and Arjan McNamara, who know the idiosyncrasies of capturing acoustic eccentricities better than any- one. This irreverent crewe of Dan Hicks,Austin deLone (Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello),Tim Eschliman (Commander Cody, Etta James, Rhythmtown-Jive), Paul Rogers (Those Darn Accordions!), Jim Rothermel (Jesse Colin Young,Van Morrison), Lance Dickerson (Commander Cody, David Bromberg) and Blake Richardson (Bobby Hebb) deliver a dozen season-stop- ping classics spearheaded by the great Rogers classic already making a buzz,"SANTA LOST A HO".To help emphasize this monumental statement, original founding members Nick Dewey (Bodacious, Rowdy & the Rivets; first time on a CJB recording),Greg“Duke”Dewey(MadRiver,CountryJoeMcDonald,MartyBalin) andPaulWenninger(washtubvirtuoso) were imported for the sessions. There are also special guest appearances by Norton Buffalo (doing the Marx Brothers classic "I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas"), Texas blues master Angela Strehli, Bay Area favorite, Maria Muldaur (both on "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus"), and the great powerhouse soul-gospel of Mike Duke (Wet Willy, Delbert McClinton), recapping the classic lawsuit-threatened Huey "Piano" Smith arrangement of "Silent Night". Not being of a mind to under-staff such a masterpiece, the talent roster was topped off with Dan Hick's vocal back-up quartet, "The Opinions" (including Eggs Over Easy's Brien Hopkins, Austin deLone and Jay David, plus Tim Eschliman). The fabulous original painting cover art was commissioned of Mark Keller (official poster artist for this year's Sausalito Art Festival, 2002 New Art International competition 1st place winner), who has created a marvelously tired and sleepy Santa being awoken by his elves in the eleventh hour of Christmas Eve in a lush canvas remindful of the great Norman Rockwell. It all spells out a new Christmas tradition not to be missed!