Memphis calls itself "The Home of the Blues and the Birthplace of Rock-and-Roll." But the blues wandered up from Mississippi and rock-and-roll came later. Perhaps more foundational to the Memphis music story is a strand of blues-related music less celebrated now: String and jug bands. >>>

This was the rough, vibrant music that thrived on the streets and in the parks around Beale Street in the 1920s when W.C. Handy and Bessie Smith were performing in the clubs. The instrumental variety and spirited ensemble playing of these bands — most notably the Memphis Jug Band and Cannon's Jug Stompers — drew from a multitude of sources (blues, jazz, ragtime, hillbilly music, novelty songs), and they now sound as much like a precursor to rock-and-roll as anything in early American music.

Jug and string bands were a phenomenon largely tied to the pre-Depression years, but there have been revivals over the years, mostly notably in the 1960s, and there have always been practitioners of the form on the Memphis scene. And it just so happens that one of the most interesting "new" bands in Memphis this year is a trio of blues/roots veterans coming together to embrace the form — The South Memphis String Band.

The South Memphis String Band, whose debut album, Home Sweet Home, was released earlier this year on the local Memphis International label, unites celebrated Memphis-based musician Alvin Youngblood Hart, North Mississippi Allstar guitarist Luther Dickinson, and former Squirrel Nut Zipper Jimbo Mathus.

"Luther's always up to something, brainstorming something," Hart says when asked how the band formed. "Me and Luther and Jimbo and Charlie Musselwhite had been recording some stuff down at [the late Jim Dickinson's] Zebra Ranch [studio]. I don't know what we had planned to do with it, but this came out of that basically."

Those sessions with Musselwhite haven't seen light of day, and may not, but Hart, Dickinson, and Mathus have found a fruitful partnership digging into an old style that's long been a primary influence for each of them individually.

"That's a big part of the inspiration for the three of us," Hart says about the most under-recognized of Memphis genres. "Back in the old days, all those guys played in Memphis, all the string-band guys were kind of interchangeable. They all played with each other."

The South Memphis String Band follows that lead.

"It's kind of a round-robin thing, with us trading off vocals," Hart says. "One guy will do a couple or three songs, then the next guy and the next guy. And we back each other up."

The trio swaps out traditional instruments such as guitar, mandolin, banjo, and harmonica. And that's not all: "Jimbo is playing the jawbone of an ass on some things," Hart says.

The what?

"The jawbone of an ass, you know, like Samson slew the Philistines. It's kind of a percussion instrument."

Hart reports that this is an actual jawbone of an actual donkey, but admits it is no longer a common instrument.

"Nah, I haven't seen too many. But if somebody's going to have one, Jimbo's going to be the one to have it."

The trio's material is mostly traditional songs and covers, including titles from the likes of early bluesman Blind Willie Johnson ("Let Your Light Shine On Me") and country pioneer A.P. Carter ("Dixie Darling").

"Natural disasters, bushwackers, train songs," Hart says of the typical subject matter.

The debut album from local blues-rock power trio Dirty Streets is impressive. After building up their live credentials over the past year, the young trio (Thomas Storz, Justin Toland, Andrew Denham) does a good job capturing that precocious on-stage power on Portrait of a Man.

Some comparison to early North Mississippi Allstars might be warranted here, but the differences are that the Dirty Streets are more vocally and musically aggressive. More Zeppelin/Cream/Humble Pie, less Allman Brothers. Where the Allstars' debut was essentially rooted in local styles — bohemian '70s rock and hill-country blues — Portrait of a Man is a straight classic-rock facsimile, but played with such energy, enthusiasm, and skill that the band makes this more-received, more-generalized sound their own.

More than half the songs on this debut clock in at over five minutes, but it rarely feels indulgent. The guitars swagger and strangle and live up to the band's name: When the Streets take off on a solo, there's no jam-band exploration, just full-on grimy attack. And the rough, menacing guitar tone is matched by vocals that growl and bark beyond their age.

But this music is not all noisy blare. Witness the dynamics and nuance of "Give It Up," to choose only one particularly gripping example. The song opens with a splash of drums and some nifty soul bass before erupting into possibly the album's fastest, fiercest, and catchiest guitar riff, which it rides for a couple minutes. The band hits the brakes mid-song, revs back up, then cools down for a low-boil groove without petering out, then rallies again for a finish.

This album is callow to be sure — as song titles such as "Ramblin' Rider" and "Troubled Times, Troubled Mind" might indicate — and it isn't quite as commanding when they really slow it down ("Red Dress"), but all that only means that this already accomplished young band still has somewhere to go. And with a burgeoning live local rep followed by an opening slot on Lucero's Ramblin' Roadshow and Memphis Revue tour followed by this sharp debut album, the Dirty Streets are clearly well on their way. M