Deke Dickerson is a man who recognizes that change is sometimes
\ngood. He could have rested on the laurels of the success of his
\nprevious two albums and made another disc which was light-hearted
\nand kitschy. But circumstances would lead to his third album,
\nRhythm Rhyme And Truth<\/i>, to be a darker look at life (with an
\noccasional light moment thrown in), but proves to be Dickerson’s
\nmost mature effort yet.<\/p>\n
After experiencing a rather nasty streak of bad luck in his
\npersonal life (which is briefly mentioned in the liner notes),
\nDickerson apparently decided to get somewhat serious with this
\nrelease. No more Billy Barty appearances; no more “Beverly
\nHillbillies” voice-overs… no more fun? We’ll get back to that
\nquestion in a minute.<\/p>\n
Working more closely with labelmate Carl Sonny Leyland,
\nDickerson quickly gets down to business and begins baring his soul
\nfor the world to see. It’s sometimes a difficult picture to take
\nin, but one has to admire the way that Dickerson tackles adversity
\nthrough some powerful music – and in the end, it’s a journey well
\nworth taking. Whether it’s through cover versions (“Have Blues Will
\nTravel”, “Don’t Push Me Too Far”, “Hello Blues”) or it’s the blunt
\nforce of his own compositions (“Where to Aim,” “Where Am I
\nGoin’?”), Dickerson creates music that you’ll remember long after
\nyou stopped tapping your foot to it.<\/p>\n
By doing this, Dickerson has helped himself break out of any
\nmusical pigeonholing that people might have done with his previous
\nwork. This isn’t rockabilly in the strictest sense of the word, but
\nit’s also not country. Even “roots-rock” doesn’t quite act as the
\nright sized blanket. In the end, each listener will find themselves
\ntaking with them a certain portion of Dickerson’s music; this will
\ndiffer with each listener. If anything, this should help to broaden
\nDickerson’s fanbase.<\/p>\n
But not everything is tears and warm Michelob on
\nRhythm Rhyme And Truth<\/i>; Dickerson and the Ecco-Fonics (along
\nwith the doo-wop group The Calvanes, who make a few appearances on
\nthis disc) know when the right time is to open up the pressure
\nvalve and release everything that’s built up. Tracks like “(If I Go
\nTo Heaven) Give Me A Brunette,” “Wang Dang Dula” and “C-A Boogie”
\nall serve as bridges to Dickerson’s musical past. Why, I can almost
\neven forgive the “hidden” track buried at the end of “Where Am I
\nGoin’?”, even though there’s far too much silence between the
\nfade-out and the final kick-in for me.<\/p>\n
\nRhythm Rhyme And Truth<\/i> is an album that Dickerson had to
\nmake, if only to keep some level of sanity around his life. We
\nshould be thankful that he did make this disc – and hope that he
\nwon’t have to go through any more personal upheaval in order to
\nkeep making music this powerful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6203],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-36827","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-deke-dickerson-and-the-ecco-fonics","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36827"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36827"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}