Dickel Brothers – Volume One

When heard from a distance, the debut CD from Portland, Oregon, band the Dickel Brothers owes more than a passing nod to some of the Stones’ first attempts at country material (think of the tongue-in-cheek rendering of “Dear Doctor” and you’re getting there). Upon closer inspection, however, this surface similarity fades, replaced by a sound more true to the roots of American folk music. The Dickel Brothers fall somewhere in the vast middle of the string-band continuum, betwixt the compass points of “reverent” and “slapstick.” In the album’s liner notes, the band takes pains to point out its student status, stating that “it’s humbling…when you’re trying to figure out how [other musicians are] playing the song.” Given the traditional nature of this record, it’s easy to understand the band’s deferential posture. Luminaries such as the Monroe Brothers, the Skillet Lickers and the Arthur Smith Trio provide source material for the Dickels’ rollicking versions of songs such as “New River Train”, “My Wife Went Away And She Left Me”, and “Chitlin Cookin’ Time In Cheatham County”. This is pure party music, served up primitively but affectionately by producers Larry Crane and Joanna Bolme, who imbue the songs with a sepia-toned feel but never stoop to outright parody. At a time when Woody Guthrie’s work is being critically reevaluated as the original punk rock, it’s not surprising to find an indie-punk label such as Empty discovering the rough-and-ready sounds of the Depression era and introducing them to unsuspecting young audiences. Volume One proves that punk’s primary virtue — its DIY ethic — is equally applicable to early American roots music.