JD Wilkes
   HOME





JD Wilkes
Joshua "J. D." Wilkes (born April 18, 1972) is an American visual artist, musician, amateur filmmaker and author. He is best known as the singer for the rock music, rock band Legendary Shack Shakers, and is also an accomplished harmonica player, having recorded for such artists as Merle Haggard, Sturgill Simpson, John Carter Cash, Mike Patton, and Hank Williams III in the ''American Masters'' film "Hank Williams: Honky Tonk Blues". His song "Swampblood" can be heard on the Grammy-nominated soundtrack for HBO's ''True Blood'' series. Wilkes is a resident of Paducah, Kentucky and is the author of two books, ''The Vine That Ate The South'' and ''Barn Dances and Jamborees Across Kentucky''. Early life and education Wilkes was born in Baytown, Texas, Baytown, Texas. He holds a bachelor's degree in Studio Art from Kentucky's Murray State University. Career Wilkes is known as the founder and only remaining original member of the Legendary Shack Shakers, a rockabilly and blues band h ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Baytown, Texas
Baytown is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, within Harris County, Texas, Harris and Chambers County, Texas, Chambers counties. Located in the Greater Houston, Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan statistical area, it lies on the northern side of the Galveston Bay complex near the outlets of the San Jacinto River (Texas), San Jacinto River and Buffalo Bayou. It is the sixth-largest city within this metropolitan area and seventh largest community (including The Woodlands, Texas, The Woodlands Census-designated place, CDP). Major highways serving the city include Texas State Highway 99, State Highway 99, Texas State Highway 146, State Highway 146 and Interstate 10 in Texas, Interstate 10. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Baytown had a population of 83,701, and it had an estimated population of 84,324 in 2022. History White Americans, White American settlers first arrived in the now-Baytown area in 1822. One of its earliest settlers was Nathaniel L ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Merle Haggard
Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler. Widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential figures in country music, he was a central pioneer of the Bakersfield sound. With a career spanning over five decades, Haggard had 38 number-one hits on the US country charts, several of which also made the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' all-genre singles chart. Haggard overcame a troubled childhood, criminal convictions and time in prison to launch a successful country music career. He gained popularity with his songs about the working class; these occasionally contained themes contrary to the anti–Vietnam War sentiment of some popular music of the time. Haggard received many honors and awards, including a Kennedy Center Honors, Kennedy Center Honor (2010); a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2006); a BMI Awards, BMI Icon Award (2006); and induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1977) ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Southern Gothic
Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of Gothic fiction, fiction, Popular music, music, Gothic film, film, theatre, and television that are heavily influenced by Gothic fiction, Gothic elements and the Southern United States, American South. Common themes of Southern Gothic include storytelling of deeply flawed, disturbing, or Eccentricity (behavior), eccentric characters sometimes having physical deformities or insanity; decayed or derelict settings and grotesque situations; and sinister events bred from poverty, Social alienation, alienation, crime, violence, forbidden sexuality, or hoodoo (folk magic), hoodoo magic. Origins Elements of a Gothic treatment of the South first appeared during the American Civil War, ante- and post-bellum 19th century in the grotesques of Henry Clay Lewis and in the sardonic representations of Mark Twain. The genre was consolidated, however, in the 20th century, when dark romanticism, Southern humor, and the new Naturalism (literature), litera ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition or light poetry, interspersed with songs and dances. Vaudeville became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, while changing over time. In some ways analogous to music hall from Victorian Britain, a typical North American vaudeville performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, ventriloquists, strongmen, female and male impersonators, acrobats, clowns, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and films. A vaudeville performer ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Harmonica
The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the lips and tongue to direct air into or out of one (or more) holes along a mouthpiece (which covers one edge of the harmonica for most of its length). Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common type of harmonica is a diatonic Richter-tuned instrument with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called a blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, the reed alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce soun ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the Southern United States, South. As a genre, it blends the sound of Western music (North America), Western musical styles such as country music, country with that of rhythm and blues, leading to what is considered "classic" rock and roll. Some have also described it as a blend of bluegrass music, bluegrass with rock and roll. The term "rockabilly" itself is a portmanteau of "rock" (from "rock 'n' roll") and "hillbilly", the latter a reference to the country music (often called "Hillbilly#Music, hillbilly music" in the 1940s and 1950s) that contributed strongly to the style. Other important influences on rockabilly include western swing, boogie-woogie, jump blues, and electric blues. Defining features of the rockabilly sound included strong rhythms, boogie woogie piano riffs, vocal twangs, doo-wop acapella singing, and common use of the tape echo; a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Murray State University
Murray State University (MSU) is a public university in Murray, Kentucky, in the Southern United States. In addition to the main campus in Calloway County in southwestern Kentucky, Murray State operates extended campuses offering upper-level and graduate courses in Paducah, Kentucky, Paducah, Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Hopkinsville, Madisonville, Kentucky, Madisonville, and Henderson, Kentucky, Henderson. History Murray State University was founded after the passage of Senate Bill 14 by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which created two normal schools in the early 20th century to address the growing demand for professional teachers. One was to be located in the western part of the state, and many cities and towns bid for the new normal school. Rainey T. Wells spoke on behalf of the city of Murray to convince the Normal School Commission to choose his city. On September 2, 1922, Murray was chosen as the site of the western normal school, while Morehead, Kentucky ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Paducah, Kentucky
Paducah ( ) is a List of cities in Kentucky, home rule-class city in the Upland South, and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, United States. The most populous city in the Jackson Purchase region, it is located in the Southeastern United States at the confluence of the Tennessee River, Tennessee and the Ohio River, Ohio rivers, halfway between St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, to the northwest and Nashville, Tennessee, to the southeast. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 27,137, up from 25,024 in 2010. Twenty blocks of the city's downtown have been designated as a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Paducah is the principal city of the Paducah micropolitan area, Paducah metropolitan area, which includes McCracken, Ballard County, Kentucky, Ballard, Carlisle County, Kentucky, Carlisle and Livingston County, Kentucky, Livingston list of counties in Kentucky, counties in Kentucky and Massac County, Illin ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

True Blood
''True Blood'' is an American fantasy Horror fiction, horror Drama (film and television), drama television series produced and created by Alan Ball (screenwriter), Alan Ball. It is based on ''The Southern Vampire Mysteries'', a series of novels by Charlaine Harris. The series revolves around Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a telepathic waitress living in the fictional rural town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. It is set two years after the invention of a synthetic blood product branded "Tru Blood" that has allowed vampires to "come out of the coffin" and let their presence be known to mankind. It chronicles the vampires' struggle for equal rights and assimilation while anti-vampire organizations begin to gain power. Sookie's world is turned upside down when she falls in love with 174-year-old vampire Bill Compton (The Southern Vampire Mysteries), Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer), and for the first time, she must navigate the trials and terrors of intimacy and relationships. The show was ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Swampblood
''Swampblood'' is the sixth studio album by American rock band Legendary Shack Shakers. It is the third and final entry in the band's "Tentshow Trilogy" of albums, after ''Believe'' (2004) and '' Pandelirium'' (2006). Musical style According to ''AllMusic'', the Legendary Shack Shakers "continue to expand their musical palette" with ''Swampblood'', writing that "the Tennessee hell-raisers have added a healthy portion of classic swamp rock to the menu", comparing the title track's style to the music of Tony Joe White, "Old Spur Line" to Slim Harpo, and "Hellwater" to Creedence Clearwater Revival. ''Hybrid'' magazine said that ''Swampblood'' "continues to purvey that classic country blues with a bayou twist" that the band is known for, but branches out beyond this style "with alternative forms of alternative country music, all the while maintaining their distinctive sound". ''Swampblood'' is the final album in the band's "Tentshow Trilogy", preceded by ''Believe'' (2004) and '' P ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Hank Williams
Hiram "Hank" Williams (September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. An early pioneer of country music, he is regarded as one of the most significant and influential musicians of the 20th century. Williams recorded 55 singles that reached the top 10 of the Hot Country Songs, ''Billboard'' Country & Western Best Sellers chart, five of which were released posthumously, and 12 of which reached No.1. Born and raised in Alabama, Williams learned guitar from African-American blues musician Rufus Payne. Both Payne and Roy Acuff significantly influenced his musical style. After winning an amateur talent contest, Williams began his professional career in Montgomery in the late 1930s playing on local radio stations and at area venues such as school houses, movie theaters, and bars. He formed the Drifting Cowboys backup band, which was managed by his mother, and dropped out of school to devote his time to his career. Because his alcoholism made ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

American Masters
''American Masters'' is a PBS television series which produces biographies on enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists, filmmakers, and those who have left an indelible impression on the cultural landscape of the United States. It is produced by WNET in New York City. The show debuted on PBS in 1986. Groups or organizations featured include: Actors Studio, Algonquin Round Table, Group Theatre, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Women of Tin Pan Alley, Negro Ensemble Company, Juilliard School, the Beat Generation, the singer-songwriters of the 1970s, Sun Records, vaudeville, and Warner Bros. History ''American Masters'', a series "devoted to America's 'greatest native-born and adopted' artists", was originally scheduled to premiere in September 1985; for "logistical scheduling reasons" the premiere was delayed until summer 1986, though on October 16, 1985, an ''American Masters'' "special" called ''Aaron Copland: A Self-Portrait'' was aired. The first of t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]