Music H1story >> Legendary Shack Shakers Will Shake You Senseless .!. by Chris Walter

Note::: Chris Walter is a Vancouver writer and the author. His latest book “SNFU… What No One Else Wanted to Say” is now available. We recommend you buy and review it on Amazon. Chris is sharing some other acts that caught his ears over the years.

There is something deeply unsettling about the Legendary Shack Shakers. They sound like practitioners of the ancient voodoo arts, like a haunted Louisiana bayou at midnight, like fifty screamin’ bootleggers drunk on pure corn liquor. Mere words do not accurately describe the evil thoughts and sinful feelings that burst from the speakers to fill the air. These boys are down and dark, wild and wicked—poison-hearted purveyors of something so sinister that it cannot be properly identified. Call it music for the morally disturbed.
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Hailing from Paducah, Kentucky the ‘Shakers mix punk, gothic rock, Delta blues, and rockabilly to form a bastardized sound that would have been illegal twenty years ago. Founding member JD Wilkes is a bonafide madman who yanks out his own pubic hair and throws it in the air to catch in his mouth.
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Dangerously unhinged, he is a whirling shaman who Jello Biafra calls “The last great American rock n’ roll frontman.” The band consists of players so deranged and vicious that Hank Williams III can’t even keep them in line.

Although GEICO used one of their songs for a television commercial and famous dudes like Stephen King sing their praise, the Legendary Shack Shakers are not mainstream stars but hardworking musicians trying to eke out a living on the touring circuit. Clearly, JD Wilkes has not yet sold his soul to the devil.
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Although the ‘Shakers have released six albums and traveled the globe in the last eight years, they have the feel of a band that is just getting started. Anyone who believes that live music should be more of a religious experience than a simple performance need to check out the Legendary Shack Shakers the next time they roll into town. Bring a priest and a bible.
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—Chris Walter

Photo by Jennifer Dodds