The Jelly Roll Kings were an electric

Electric blues

Electric blues is a type of blues music distinguished by the amplification of the guitar, bass guitar, drums, and often the harmonica. Pioneered in the 1930s, it emerged as a genre in Chicago in the 1940s. It was taken up in many areas of America leading to the development of regional subgenres...

 Delta blues

Delta blues

The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...

 band. The members of the band were: Frank Frost

Frank Frost

Frank Frost Frank Frost Frank Frost (April 15, 1936 — was one of the foremost American delta blues harmonica players of his generation.-Life and career:Born Frank Otis Frost in Auvergne, Arkansas, United States, Frost learned to play piano at church as a young boy. He moved to St. Louis, Missouri...

 (keyboard

Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

/harmonica

Harmonica

The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...

), Big Jack Johnson

Big Jack Johnson

Big Jack Johnson was an American electric blues musician.One commentator noted that Johnson, along with R. L...

 (guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

) and Sam Carr

Sam Carr

Sam Carr was an organizer for the Communist Party of Canada and, its successor, the Labour-Progressive Party in the 1930s and 1940s. He was born Schmil Kogan in Tomachpol, Ukraine in 1906 and immigrated to Canada in 1924, living in Winnipeg and Regina before settling in Montreal in 1925...

 (drums

Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

). Their most famous songs included "The Jelly Roll King", and "Catfish Blues".

Career

The three had been playing together irregularly from 1962 and into the seventies under the name The Nighthawks. In 1979 they were invited by Michael Frank to record. now as The Jelly Roll Kings, their debut Rockin' the Juke Joint Down, which was a debut release of Earwig Music Company

Earwig Music Company

Earwig Music Company is an independent American blues and jazz record label, founded October 1978 in Chicago by Michael Frank.Before setting up his label Michael Frank from 1975 until 1977 had been - like Bruce Iglauer of Alligator Records and Jim O'Neal of Living Blues magazine - employed in Bob...

 too. In the following years they kept performing separately, but were recorded again. Fat Possum Records

Fat Possum Records

Fat Possum Records is an American independent record label based in Oxford, Mississippi. At first Fat Possum focused almost entirely on recording hitherto unknown Mississippi blues artists . Recently, Fat Possum has signed younger rock acts to its roster...

 released the Kings 1997 follow-up, Off Yonder Wall. It was produced by Robert Palmer, and included tracks such as "That's Alright Mama" and "Baby Please Don't Go."

Frank Frost died in 1999, Sam Carr followed in 2009, and Big Jack Johnson in 2011.

Discography

• Rockin' the Juke Joint Down (1979), Earwig
• Off Yonder Wall (1997), Fat Possum
  Fat Possum Records
  Fat Possum Records is an American independent record label based in Oxford, Mississippi. At first Fat Possum focused almost entirely on recording hitherto unknown Mississippi blues artists . Recently, Fat Possum has signed younger rock acts to its roster...