J.D. Wilkes is an artist and musician living in Paducah, Kentucky. He has recorded harmonica for acts like Merle Haggard, Hank Williams III, John Carter Cash, Mike Patton, Shemekia Copeland, Sturgill Simpson and many others.
Wilkes is perhaps best known as the founder of the Legendary Shack Shakers, a rocking “hillbilly blues” band formed in the mid-90s. The group is known for their work for HBO’s Grammy-nominated soundtrack for True Blood & the first GEICO “gecko” commercial. They have also appeared in their own episode of PBS’s Sun Studio Sessions.
Fans of Wilkes’s work include Stephen King, Robert Plant, Billy Bob Thornton and Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra. Rolling Stone named Wilkes as Americana’s “best frontman” for his performance with the band at a Nashville festival.
He is the author of Barn Dances and Jamborees Across Kentucky—a history of traditional music gatherings in the Bluegrass State—and the novel The Vine That Ate The South, a book praised by NPR as “undeniably one of the smartest, most original Southern Gothic novels to come along in years.”
JD Wilkes 