“dickerson_deke”
Deke Dickerson and the Ecco-fonics
More Million Sellers
Hightone
If the 90’s are going to be remembered for anything other than the Internet, it will be for its emphasis on environmental consciousness, namely recycling. Ironically, this newfound emphasis stems to the decade’s music world, where more than 50 years of popular music has been perpetually recycled in the dubious form of “comebacks” of everything from swing to ska to punk and beyond. The thing is, no music style ever goes away – only away from the mainstream’s probing master eye. Thus, “recycling” should be no more of a dirty word than any other in musical discourse.
Just ask former-Untamed Youth six-slinger Deke Dickerson, this decade’s most astute rockabilly purveyor. Backed by the three-piece Ecco-fonics, Dickerson enthusiastically recycles the rockabilly idiom on their second album together, More Million Sellers . Though he hardly departs from the fossilized-but-immortal stylings of Eddie Cochran and Jerry Lee Lewis, Dickerson injects loads of charisma, both as a guitarist and vocalist, into such good-natured predictability and its close variants (boogie, hillbilly country). But you can’t fault him for that: After all, rockabilly just ain’t rockabilly if you fuck with it enough. In the genre’s grand tradition, Dickerson kicks out his own jams as well as various well-chosen covers (the Rebel Rousers’ “Red Headed Woman,” Earl King’s “Let the Good Times Roll,” et. al.). What matters most, however, is Dickerson’s (hopeful) introduction of these time-honored traditions to today’s youth, who most likely don’t even remember Vanilla Ice, for better or worse.
Hightone Records, 220 4th St. #101, Oakland, CA 94607; http://www.hightone.com
