Click Here for Video Sample! Solo Debut Album On Vinyl LP!
Fire Dream is the debut solo from the leader of the Legendary Shack Shakers, J.D. Wilkes. The album, containing the single Walk Between the Raindrops, features members of Squirrel Nut Zippers and Drive-By Truckers.
A sense of place has long permeated the music of J.D. Wilkes. Hes a native of Paducah, Kentucky, a city located at the confluence of various rivers and cultures an area where musical variety is in the air and in the blood memory of its people.
"Of course, theres bluegrass and hillbilly songs, but also blues, jazz, old time fiddle music, jug band music, even swamp rock," says Wilkes. "Its a great intersection there. I think I epitomize that in the way that I write and perform."
Wilkes solo debut, Fire Dream, represents the apotheoses of that vision: a hillbilly-gypsy epic, its an album of art damaged cabaret music, leavened by Latin rhythms and high lonesome hollers. Call it boho bluegrass maybe what Tom Waits would sound like if he were a Kentucky Colonel (a title that Wilkes happens to hold).
Proving a compelling firebrand of American roots music during his two decades leading experimental rockabilly group Legendary Shack Shakers, Wilkes has a resume and passions that extend far and wide. A visual artist, filmmaker and author, hes served as a session player for Merle Haggard, helped soundtrack HBOs True Blood, penned a pair of books (The Vine That Ate the South and Barn Dances and Jamborees Across Kentucky) and worked as an ethnomusicologist without portfolio, documenting the dying hillbilly culture of Kentucky.
Wilkes creative approach is defined by his home regions rich history as a musical nexus. "Western Kentucky is unique in that a lot of that mountain music, which is otherwise stuck in Appalachia, trickled down and permeated our conscience" he says. "But if you look at it topographically were a flat delta lowland region, a flood zone so we have a lot in common with the Mississippi Delta and Memphis and we got all that jazz and blues that came up the river as well."
That keen understanding of history is partly what drew the interest of Fat Possums Big Legal Mess imprint, which signed Wilkes in 2017. "They saw me as a kindred spirit," he says, "in my efforts to archive and field-record and report upon some form of folk music thats in danger of being forgotten."
For his solo debut, however, Wilkes has something more outré in mind than a mere musical lesson or genre exercise. Recorded at Delta-Sonic Sound in Memphis with producer Bruce Watson and Jimbo Mathus, the album finds Wilkes creating a complex tapestry of styles and sounds, playing banjo, harmonica, and piano, adding percussion, and even winding up an old hurdy-gurdy. Aiding him in that effort are a couple kindred musical spirits in guitarist Mathus and multi-instrumentalist Dr. Sick from the ever-eclectic Squirrel Nut Zippers.
"They were the perfect people to bring in. They could play any kind of style," says Wilkes. "Jimbo has such an intuitive feel for blues and Dr. Sick, man, hes the most amazing musician Ive ever had the privilege of playing with. I dont even know what his real name is, but that guy is awesome." Rounding out the recording are contributions from Drive-By Truckers bassist Matt Patton, up-and-coming soul chanteuse Liz Brasher on backing vocals, and the horn section from Bluff City R&B band, The Bo-Keys.
The albums opening and title track "Fire Dream" establishes the tone with a cinematic setup. "It sounds as if a gypsy carnival blew in on a tornado and landed in a hillbilly junkyard," says Wilkes of the tune. "I tried to pay attention to the texture of the songs, both what was in them and how they connected to each other, and the record as a whole."
Within its ten tracks Fire Dream contains multitudes: from galloping string rambles ("Wild Bill Jones") to slow burning laments ("Walk Between the Raindrops"), hardscrabble narratives ("Hoboes Are My Heroes") exotic nocturnes ("Moonbottle"), and hellfire comedy ("Bible, Candle and a Skull").
Wilkes acid wit shines through on Fire Dream, with his lyrics coming across as both highly crafted and deeply intuitive. "A song is like a puzzle, you have to feel around and figure out how the words fit," he says. "It doesnt matter if its Hank, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits or Nick Cave, they all have a knack for knowing the most artful way the words can collide with one another, or flow together."
Features:
Vinyl LP
Selections:
Side One:
1. Fire Dream
2. Down In The Hidey Hole
3. Moonbottle
4. Hoboes Are My Heroes
5. Wild Bill Jones
Side Two:
1. Walk Between The Raindrops
2. Starlings, KY
3. Bible, Candle And A Skull
4. Rain And Snow
5. That's What They Say
