Th' Legendary Shack Shakers

?Breaker! Breaker! Brothers and Sisters?Ladies and Gentleman, step right up! And ye shall surely know.? Th' Legendary Shack*Shakers started their hell-for-leather, Penta-caustic roadshow in late 2002, but their collective musical experience goes back a bit farther. Front man and blues-harpist ?Colonel? J.D. Wilkes began yelpin' the blues thru a ham radio mike at his boyhood home in the Atomic City of Paducah, Kentucky ... not far from where future bandmate and slap-bassist Mark Robertson was cutting his teeth on punk rock.

Th' Legendary Shack*Shakers started their hell-for-leather, Penta-caustic roadshow in late 2002, but their collective musical experience goes back a bit farther.

Front man and blues-harpist ?Colonel? J.D. Wilkes began yelpin' the blues thru a ham radio mike at his boyhood home in the Atomic City of Paducah, Kentucky ... not far from where future bandmate and slap-bassist Mark Robertson was cutting his teeth on punk rock.

Years later, when the two met, they found their separate styles and interests meshed well together. With the recent addition of Duane Denison, former Jesus Lizard and current Tomahawk guitarist, Th' Legendary Shack*Shakers have now become the best Southern Gothic amusement you can get for your hard-earned money.

Melding the rural, agri-dustrial rhythms of Appalachian hoedowns, the intensity of gutbucket blues, and even the madcap oompah of polka, the band has created a monstrous abomination (Delta Punk?). And it is this sound that keeps them in high demand from Europe to New York to the West Coast and all points in between.

Along the way, they lug with them an eye-popping display of authentic, sideshow humbuggery; thus lending even more color to their peculiar pageant of vaudevillian exuberance. As a result, the band routinely tops the list of Music City's alt-weekly picks, and has been named one of the Best Live Shows year after year. Colonel J.D. was voted Nashville's ?Best Front Man? by the Nashville SCENE, and has been called ?the last great rock 'n' roll front man? by the Dead Kennedys' Jello Biafra.

In addition to his musical accolades, J.D. Wilkes has also been recognized as an accomplished illustrator and painter whose sketches further the band's mission of celebrating and honoring the tradition of the American south. Alarm Magazine recently featured Wilkes's elaborate sketches ala Thomas Nast in a four-page spread describing him as the ?Ambassador of Genuine Traditional Southern Culture? and compared his unique storytelling abilities to that of other Southern voices such as William Faulkner, Johnny Cash and Muddy Waters.