Robert George Meek was born in 1929 in Newent, England. Joe’s mother wanted a girl and dressed him as a girl. Whilst his three brothers were outward going young Joe was introverted and enjoyed staging magic shows for other children and dressing up for his own elaborate theatre productions.

During the Depression, Jug music became a fashionable way to play traditional US folk and blues standards. Makeshift instruments including guitars made from a gallon can with a neck attached and strings or alternatively homemade banjos with a tanned hide stretched across a hoop and a fretted neck added with four strings were played.

“Keep On Keeping On’ Ep was released by The Truth to mark 30 years since their last new music, but it is far more than that. The Ep is made up of four tracks, two re-releases and two originals, connecting their 80s past with a renewed creative spark.

1:30 am on an early May Friday morning, in a deserted M6 service station stifling a deserved yawn, I stir a dispensed cup of coffee and deliberate over which calorific chocolate snack should help keep me awake for the last leg of a journey that has taken me from Norwich to Preston, via London.

By the time of the Vietnam/American War (1955 – 1975), music was used to help soldiers deal with the complexities of war whilst keeping them in touch with each other and the life they left, back home.