Talking with Deke Dickerson

DekeDickerson4_photo credit Susie Delaney Deke with his guitar standing in the street in front of a 1950s car playing his guitar

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Welcome to the Beat Your Heart Out podcast presented by Moon Over the Trees Music and Theatre Productions®. I’m your host Maureen Buscareno and I’m super excited to introduce you to the stories and music from some of the most incredible musicians from the world of rock, blues, country, rockabilly, punk, and garage that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing perform. I love their music so much I think you will too.

Deke Dickerson is known by many in the Rockabilly, Country, Garage Punk, and guitar world as a phenomenally talented and fun performer. Boy, did we cover a lot of ground in this interview. I hope you enjoy it. Whatever genre Deke is playing you can’t help but hear the joy he takes in all he does.

He’s also a collector. Like a modern day Alan Lomax searching for lost songs and forgotten talented artists he loves. He’s there keeping their stories and music alive and also adds to the tradition with his original compositions. Deke is also known for his garage sale finds in a wonderful world of weirdness that he shares with his fans on Facebook. He’s collected some interesting things, even a pink toilet that he found in a home that Merle Travis lived in in Oklahoma.

Speaking of Merle Travis, Deke is also an accomplished writer and music historian and has a book on Country legend, Merle Travis coming out in the spring of 2021. Surprisingly this is one of the first Biographies written about Merle Travis. Deke commented that, “Anybody who would enjoy a biography of Johnny Thunders would enjoy a biography of Merle Travis.” We talk about how the book came to be, Merle’s legacy, and how Merle came up with the concept for modern electric solid body guitar which was made by Paul Bigsby in 1948.

Another one of Deke’s books that has gained a cult following is, “Strat in the Attic: Thrilling Stories of Guitar Archaeology. It’s hard to find a copy, but totally worth it. It’s also available on Kindle. (I am an affiliate for Amazon so I do get a small bit from your purchase at no additional cost to you.)

We talk about recording, his label Ecco-Fonics, along with how he wound up in NYC meeting Miriam Linna and Billy Miller of Norton Records and how soda pop fueled his trip. We chat a bit about how he got involved with Johnny Knoxville working on the soundtrack for the movie, “Action Point”, which was an homage to the legendary Action Park waterpark in NJ that I used to go to when I was a kid, and obviously survived.

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