Gray braided hair doesn’t mean Texas legend can’t rock the house
Kat Vickers | Staff Reporter

Dan DeGrado is pure talent and one of today’s Texas Music scene treasures. He has been developing his diverse sound since age five, when he took up the piano and soon after the organ. By the ’60s, the sounds of the British invasion caught his ear and he began writing his own tunes. At age 10 he added playing alto and tenor saxophones to his musical talents, and finally, by age 13, he had picked up the guitar. DeGrado made the guitar his instrument of choice and headed full-steam ahead. As a teenager, he performed with choral groups and formed a comedic folk group, The Freedom Singers. In the late ’60s, he toured the United States, Canada and northern Europe with The Continental Singers. When DeGrado relocated to Texas he was into the blues scene. By chance he happened upon a Texas songwriter circle hosted by T-Roy Miller. DeGrado began playing with T-Roy’s band, Generation teX; they still play together on occasion as the T-Roy and Dan Show. With his band, Juvenile Senility, DeGrado now stays busy in the DFW area, around Texas and is crossing the border into other states. The band’s first CD is “The Dragon”--a mind-blowing mix of blues, country, rock and Louisiana Zydaco. From the first cut, “Gonna Have Some Fun,” you know you are in for a treat. It is a hoppin’ blues song that is the perfect introduction to DeGrado and Juvenile Senility. The Hammond B3 organ rocks with the talents of Tim Alexander of Asleep At The Wheel fame. All cuts on the CD are written by DeGrado, except for the last one “Diamonds are Forever,” and as good as that is, I still prefer the ones by DeGrado. Cut three, “Juvenile Senility,” is a perfect dance hall tune that proves you don’t have to be young to get the joint jumpin’. “Grey braided hair, wrinkles in my tattooed arms, hanging out at every dive in town … screw them, let’s have another round,” he says. “Now it’s time for me to have some fun … and just chalk it up to juvenile senility.” The cover tune, “The Dragon,” has shades of the great old rock ballads with depth and compassion. “Home to Texas” covers it all--blues, rock, country, you name it! DeGrado is also a man who loves long and true, with all his heart. His love for romance and music are intertwined in songs like “Love Affair,” and “Longing For You.” You have probably seen DeGrado at the Neon Spur in Wichita Falls. He is planning on returning several times over the summer. Whether you catch DeGrado live with Juvenile Senility, as a solo act or up with T-Roy Miller, or just pop the CD in your player--I know you will you will have a good time.

 

His grandpa gave him a harmonica; God gave him a gift
Kat Vickers | Staff Reporter

Joe Ely knocked down the door to Texas music for me back in the late ’70s. He was the singer/songwriter who rocked the house. His songs were not just words but stories and images that were truly Texan. Kevin Deal’s new CD, “The Lawless,” is like getting a big helping of your long-time favorite dinner, only better. You can hear Ely’s presence but also a brilliant mix of other influences such as Steve Earle, Terry Allen, Ray Wylie Hubbard and Robert Earl Keen. Deal shares a common gift with these troubadours--the talent for telling tales, history and stories set to music. When I first saw Deal perform I had no idea what talent lay hidden under that shy smile and baseball cap usually pulled so far down it hides his face. He didn’t say much, but the boy could blow harp like I had never heard. (That is play harmonica for those who don’t use slang.) Deal remembers, “My Grandpa gave me a harmonica when I was little. He played and I was always fascinated by that.” Self teaching proved to be Deal’s best learning device. In high school, he picked up the electric guitar, started writing songs, and eventually put together a three-piece garage band. Deal met and married the love of his life, Kim, and they started a home and family. He started his own masonry company but a love of music always tugged at him. Though born in Iowa, Deal proudly claims he is the father of five Texans. With his company and family going well he began thinking more about music. First he just brought out the harmonicas and played with a few country cover bands in the DFW area. Then he was hooked up with the famous bluesman Johnny Peebles. That led to a working relationship with Curly “Barefoot” Miller, another blues legend. Dallas favorite Ed Burleson snapped up Kevin for his roadhouse rockin’ country band, and soon he was also playing with Texas favorite Mark David Manders. It was around that time that Deal got his strat out of the closet and began playing again. With his band, “Full Metal Racket,” and the skills of producer Lloyd Maines, Kevin has released four CDs. On “The Lawless,” with 13 cuts, 10 originals and three covers, Kevin has gone above and beyond his earlier projects. I was so taken with his third CD, “Kiss on the Breeze,” I doubted it could be topped. In this case I love being wrong! With songs like the title cut, “The Lawless,” it is hard to believe the kind, soft-spoken, devoted father could write such a detailed account of such an unlawful figure. In “You Ain’t Nobody,” he unwittingly gives us all a line we will be using about him someday: “We’ll all say we knew you, when you was just a kid.” One of the cover tunes is from fellow Blind Nello Label artist Max Stalling, “Freedom for Mary.” Deal was actually in Stalling’s band for a short time and has sat in with him hundreds of other nights. It is wonderful that not only did he choose to cover a fellow artist’s song but he showed class and guts in doing one of Stalling’s more obscure songs. Even so it is a wonderful song and an excellent ballad that shows off DeGrado’s vocals. There is so much to say about this CD, I would need a full page. It is better to just check out Kevin at his Web site http://www.kevindeal.com or see the band live—there’s not a bad song in the bunch!

 

White Stripes gallantly streaming with new CD
Matt Terrell | Staff Reporter

Replaying the same mix of reverb-drenched Zeppelin blues through outdated recording equipment isn’t a change of pace for the White Stripes, but when compared to other trendy garage rock contemporaries, they had the best idea to begin with. It’s a satisfying sound, and singer Jack White seems content with pretending his music doesn’t matter. To his dismay, it does matter, and whether or not you are forking over money to the conglomerate of “The Band” Incorporated, it’s hard to deny the impact bands like The Strokes and The Vines have made on rock music in the past two years. With no delusions of grandeur shrouding their judgment, the White Stripes recorded the new album “Elephant” in just two weeks on a crapped out eight-track in England. Same routine, same sound, better songs. This is a musical niche that doesn’t require reinvention at every album to still be interesting. The songs must simply improve, and for that reason “Elephant” is an enjoyable listen. The growth is seen on the thumping bass line heard in opener “Seven Nation Army” and takes off in the histrionic Queen blaster “There’s No Home For You Here.” It’s still a two-member ensemble, but Jack and Meg White sound like a demented punk/blues marching band. Most impressive is the bombastic blues rave-up “Ball and Biscuit” which has over eight minutes of Jack kneeling at his Jimmy Paige alter. Equally impressive are the softer songs like the sweet “You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket,” and the haunting “In the Cold, Cold Night,” which is sung by drummer Meg. The mentioned songs fly off the record while the others simply maintain homeostasis. “Elephant” is twice is loud and half as spastic as previous album “White Blood Cells.” This means White is becoming more familiar with the concept of songwriting and has figured out how to fill out that eight track a little more. In the meantime, nothing shocking happens. I’m never blown away or surprised at what I hear on “Elephant,” but The White Stripes aren’t pretentious enough to care. It’s nothing more than rock music.

 

Summertime blues? Try these new CDs
Richard Carter | For The Wichitan

Listening to a really good CD won’t necessarily make you a better person. But it surely can make you feel better about a lot of things. The advent of summer marks five cannot miss titles that are clearly worth checking out. Pester your local record store clerk to play them for you. Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Fever to Tell” The debut full-length from that high-energy, nervy garage trio from Brooklyn is utterly brilliant. A smart mix of tempos, textures, attitudes, drums, guitars and vox, this CD will leave you rockin’, reelin’ and wantin’ more. Plain and simple, there is no better band playing today. Goldfrapp “Black Cherry” Alison Goldfrapp’s new CD follows her groundbreaking first recording, “Felt Mountain” which sounded something like a synthesis of noir, Ennio Morricone soundtrack, Portishead and a host of cool world pop and cabaret touches. Black Cherry is a darker sounding version of the first CD. The new disc is a heady mix of Goldfrapp’s deliciously smooth and expressive voice and walls of strings or keyboards, often punctuated with relaxed beats. Sometimes smart new wave-ish, other times chill-out dance-ish, this is music for dusk or for lazy under the Compari umbrella mornings. !!! “Me and Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard (A True Story)” This two song 18-minute EP by a transplanted California dance band named !!! now residing in Brooklyn, and pronounced chik chik chik or pow pow pow or unh unh unh, portends one awesome full-length. A noise punk-meets-funk band, !!! features a hard danceable mess of horns, percussion, guitar, keys and highly politicized lyrics. Imagine a good disco jam hijacked by the intensity of punk, the smarts of funk and the eclecticism of good electronics. I cannot wait to see them live for a full-set. “Can U feel it intensify?” Gemma Hayes “Night on My Side” 24-year-old Irish woman with a nice, clear, expressive voice plays acoustic guitar and pop music. But wait a minute, Hayes is an excellent songwriter and a lyricist with something to say. And beyond that, she has a remarkable ear for arrangements, sometimes invoking shoegazer-like swirling melodies Her first album is a remarkably smart and meaningful pop CD with a tasteful range of emotions and pop textures. But “Night on My Side” does more than just sound good. It makes you care like good folk and good jazz do; and, the way great pop did once upon a time. This album should appeal to a wide range of listeners. The New Pornographers “Electric Version” The Vancouver act’s follow-up to the brilliant “Mass Romantic” continues its lively ’60s psychedelic-meets-contemporary-pop sounds. Way hummable and danceable, these songs stick with you. The harmony vocals, guitar lines and keyboards develop insanely memorable melodies. If the band’s music was fantastically all over the musical map on “Mass Romantic,” the band has kept its influences but synthesized them a little more in its newer songs. There’s still plenty of hooks to snare listeners and great vocals by Carl Newman and Neko Case. “Electric Version” is one of these CD’s that keeps getting better.