It’s interesting to see how a band within a particular genre can expand and evolve.
I became aware of Chuck Darwin & the Knuckledraggers when I had just moved to Gettysburg, and they were playing at Ploughman Cider Taproom on the Gettysburg Square.
I was very new to the Gettysburg music scene and was a bit overwhelmed at the professionalism and skill of this band. I also learned that they were really good guys. Guitarist Ben Wenk even gave me a copy of their CD, “For Educational Purposes Only,” after the set.
I admit I didn’t run home and listen to it at the time. Bluegrass-Americana-Folk isn’t my first club out of the bag when I’m listening at home; I thought of the Draggers as a fun band to see, but not really what I want to listen to in my living room as I’m writing or doing a fret job on a telecaster. That turned out to be a foolish underestimation. Not my first or last.
A few weeks later, one night when I was in the kitchen “reconstructing” the concept of stuffed cabbage in a process not unlike the hell they put Hercules through, I popped the CD in. The production reminded me a lot of the early Violent Femmes albums, which is refreshing after having lived through… you know… the 90s. I ended up doing an even worse job on the stuffed cabbage (if that was possible), because I kept going back and replaying the songs.
Eventually, I gave up and sat down in the living room with the headphones and just listened to it, no longer distracted by my cabbage incompetence. The recording was purposefully raw, but still clean and well-balanced. I was surprised by how engaging David Pickering’s banjo is. I usually find banjo a little annoying in large doses, but not here. Banjos can clash with a guitar and get a little garish after a while…but Pickering carries the tune, Wenk works around him with the guitar and interjects, and bassist Jared Wenerd lays down a rhythm like the hand of God (or Wyman. Take your pick). Meanwhile, as I continued listening, I could hear Billy Jones weaving around them all with his harps, filling and coloring.
So, I enjoyed it, and over the next few months, I got to hear the Draggers and also Wenk playing on his own many times. He has a massive catalog of music in his head and at his fingers, but what I came to understand is that he doesn’t just know the songs (although just having all those lyrics and chords and melodies to recall is amazing in itself), he understands them and is able to use all that knowledge to build out his performances, and apply it to his own compositions.
I also came to understand how Wenk and his collaborator, Rob Leib, have been instrumental in orchestrating and growing the local music scene. Their support for local artists and cultivation of aligning musicians with charitable causes in the community is vast and inspiring.
Then, a couple of years ago, the Knuckledraggers dropped a new album, “Three Car Pileup.” This one, I did not let sit on my desk for a month before I listened to it. It was an evolution from the first album. It opens with Jones singing “Dance”, which is so damn good I stopped writing this just now so I could listen to it again. In other songs, we have Pickering singing lead with a distinctive voice built exactly for the material. Wenks’s voice is more modulated with a happy, phrenetic energy that drives everything he does. The songwriting and the production show Leib and Wenk hitting a stride that took what was good in the first album and built on it.
So when I heard they were dropping “Poor Man’s Rain” last December, Boy howdy. Of course, I was at the celebration of the album release at Ploughman’s (I could probably just have my mail sent to that place), doing what I always do…orbiting around the cool kids and making snarky comments about the beer selection.
I listened to “Poor Man’s Rain” as they were playing it there that night, and realized I’d heard a good few of the new songs in live performances. They have continued to refine and add influences to their music, staying within the traditional Americana universe but constantly redefining and growing.
Bassist Dean Vaccher takes over the bottom on this album.
Summer Wine has a zydeco vibe with a sharp harp solo and some tremendous call and response, and the best usage of the word “wastrel” I’ve ever heard in song.
Next is the eponymous Poor Man’s Rain, a rolling banjo and harp country jump with great lyrics. I love how the banjo doesn’t call-and-response in this one, but dances around Ben’s singing and varies the tempo, all the while Dean hammering the beat so the other guys can jump around and through without ever losing the foot tap.
Burying Ground is a classic folk song you find yourself swaying to while Wenk tells you the story…something you want to be sitting around a fire pit with a cigar, closing your eyes and putting it up there. Powerful in the way Tom Waits does a story song. You stop and think about it when it’s over, then you throw it back up because you want to memorize the words.
Light is Gone seems like the most quintessential Draggers song on the album. Wenk chugs the rhythm out on his guitar while Pickering and Jones work around it, and Vaccher nails you to the floor…it sounds fresh because of the pure joy coming out of Wenk’s lyrics and the wonderful response harmonies. If Burying Ground makes you want to sit back with a cigar, Light is Gone makes you want to stand up and do some stupid-looking two-step.
Slightly Out has some brilliant lyrics. I find myself going back and listening to it again. It’s got a jumping beat and the normal Dragger chug that makes you tap your foot, but it’s easy to miss how clever and crafted the lyrics are. “A friend once said/I’m mostly pencil lead”…
Old Friend Blues has Pickering taking the front and demonstrates his virtuoso banjo work, and that smooth folky tone that he sings with. This reminds one of the old country crooners from the 50s. And again, I’m amazed at how the banjo and guitar never step on each other.
In Springtime in Pennsylvania, you can hear how much Wenk is enjoying himself. I’ve heard him do it live many times, and the grin on his face is amazing. I’m picturing him just jamming while they laid down the fiddle part of this one, and then cut over to Jones on his harp. It’s infectious; if I were to intro someone to the Draggers, this is probably the first song I’d play for them.
I first heard I’ll Be All Smiles, appropriately enough, on Valentine’s Day at the annual Murder Ballads night at Ploughman’s. It’s a great tongue-in-cheek American Gothic tragedy song, and Wenk pulls it off amazingly. But I strongly recommend you hear it live!
Slippery People is a heavily jamming country funk thing, and you find yourself jamming along with it, and then suddenly Jones jumps in on the chorus, and things get crazy exactly how you’d want them to. This one brings it so hard, I was a little tired when it finished.
I had to listen to On the Wheel a few times because it was nagging at me that it reminded me of something, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. It’s Pickering working through a banjo melody that moves along very well with a bluesy folk tone…and then it dawned on me. It reminded me of if someone handed Leonard Cohen a banjo and let him just put something together. It sounds spontaneous and finished at the same time, which is also a credit to Leib and Wenk letting the songs breathe in their production.
Pickering comes back then with a rolling banjo in “My Name is Jesse James”, where he jumps through some fun historical characters and works around a fantastic fiddle solo in the middle …hell, we even get a Pretty Boy Floyd reference. Great stuff.
Finally, Fairytales is a very Beatles-heavy tune with, I suspect, some heavy Leib fingerprints on it. It shows how versatile they can be in executing different genres and still sounding like the Draggers, and allows Wenk to work in his endless list of references and influences.
This album exemplifies the expansion and maturity this group is showing as they evolve. They’re made up of exceptional musicians who now play together so tightly and work off each other so seamlessly, it allows them to take a genre that some just use to recreate old tunes and use it as a basis and vehicle for fresh and increasingly complex art. The recording is also exceptional…and if you get to see them live, or Wenk on his own, or Wenk and Jones…or Vaccher laying it down on any of the 30 bands he must be playing bass for, do it.
Chuck D is a tremendous value to music in Gettysburg, and the individuals who make up the band are irreplaceable members of the music scene and the community as a whole. Get out and see them whenever and however often you can, and stay caught up on the festivals and events they, and their label, Guernsey Beat Records, put together. You’ll get to help some great causes and be treated to some fantastic music, made by good people.
“Poor Man’s Rain” is available for download or on vinyl, and can be heard on Spotify, Apple Music, and TouchTunes jukeboxes. It was released on Dec. 13, 2024
Additional musicians on the album include:
Summer Wine – Noah G. Fowler, fiddle; Jeff Taylor, accordion
Burying Ground – Virginia Masland, fiddle & vocals
Springtime – Noah G. Fowler, fiddle
Slippery People – Darryl Jones, congas
Both My Name is Jesse James & Old Friend Blues – Todd Mudd & Eric Annis on dobro, vox & mandolin, respectively
Tom Dudra is a local music nerd and civil war bore. He writes about local music, as well as essays and fiction about the civil war era. He is often found on the battlefield with Grant, his vicious basset war hound.