Help recreate two lost songs!

In 1932, the Memphis Jug Band traveled to Richmond, Indiana for a recording session. One of the resulting 78 records contained a pair of original songs. On side 1: "Get It From the Front," by Will Shade. On side 2: "Get It From Behind," by Jab Jones. These songs have never been reissued, and copies of the original record have never been found.

But judging from the titles, these songs are too good to forget about! Blues singers often repeated musical and lyrical ideas from other songs, or built their own variations. We can follow that process now to write these songs again. We'll never know how much our songs resemble the originals, but we might come up with something worth keeping.

This website is designed to facilitate a collaborative songwriting effort – what folklorists call the "folk process" and what software developers call "open source." You can contribute whatever you have – lyrical fragments or a proposal for an entire song – and in return you can use whatever you find here. By posting, you give anyone permission to use your ideas in whatever way they would like.

Go ahead and get started, and if you end up with a complete song, make a recording and post it so we can hear the finished product!