Dan Hicks (singer)

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Dan Hicks
Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.
DiedFebruary 6, 2016(2016-02-06) (aged 74)
Mill Valley, California, U.S.
Genres
Occupation(s)
  • Singer
  • songwriter
  • musician
Instrument(s)
  • Guitar
  • drums
Years active1965–2016
Websitewww.danhicks.net

Daniel Ivan Hicks (December 9, 1941 – February 6, 2016) was an American singer-songwriter and musician, and the leader of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. His idiosyncratic style combined elements of cowboy folk, jazz, country, swing, bluegrass, pop, and gypsy music. He is perhaps best known for the songs "I Scare Myself" and "Canned Music". His songs are frequently infused with humor, as evidenced by the title of his tune "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?". His album Live at Davies (2013) capped over forty years of music.

Writing about Hicks for

Boswell Sisters and Stuff Smith and Bing Crosby all swing. You can make yourself nutty trying to define what Dan Hicks is. Then again, you could just say: Dan Hicks swings."[1]

Early life

Hicks was born in Little Rock, Arkansas on December 9, 1941.[2][3] the only child of Ivan L. Hicks (a career United States Army and United States Air Force non-commissioned officer) and the former Evelyn Kehl. At age five, Hicks moved with his family to California. Following brief stints in Lomita, Cambria, and Vallejo, the family settled in Santa Rosa, the largest city in the North Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area, where he was a drummer in grade school and played the snare drum in his school marching band.

At 14, he was performing with area dance bands. While in high school, he had a rotating spot on Time Out for Teens, a daily 15-minute local radio program. After receiving an

San Francisco State College in 1965. Taking up the guitar in 1959, he became part of the American folk music revival scene during his undergraduate studies, often dropping out intermittently to perform at venues across the United States. Strongly influenced by the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, he would cultivate friendships with several of the group's members (most notably Maria Muldaur
) later in life.

Although he maintained an equivocal stance toward

In this capacity, he participated in the group's celebrated summer 1965 engagement at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada. After the band failed to secure a long-term recording contract, he switched to rhythm guitar in 1967 and briefly performed his original material as the group's frontman before leaving in 1968.

Bandleader

In 1967, Hicks formed Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks with violinist David LaFlamme as a vehicle for new songs rooted in his longstanding appreciation for acoustic-based forms of pre-rock popular music. In one of their earliest engagements, the group opened for The Charlatans; members of the latter band were surprised to see Hicks performing with a different ensemble.

In 1968, LaFlamme left to form It's a Beautiful Day and was replaced by jazz violinist and fellow Santa Rosan "Symphony" Sid Page. Following several lineup changes, vocalists Sherry Snow and Christine Gancher, guitarist Jon Weber, and bassist Jaime Leopold filled out the band, which had no drummer. This line-up was signed to Epic and in 1969 issued the album Original Recordings, produced by Bob Johnston. The first major Hot Licks lineup lasted until 1971 and then broke up.

"If Hicks's acoustic stylings react against the excesses of

colloquial
history in words and music both, but he's so diffident about focus that his mock nostalgia is too easy to mistake for the right thing."

Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981)[5]

When Hicks reformed the band, Page and Leopold remained, and vocalists Naomi Ruth Eisenberg and Maryann Price joined, followed later by guitarist John Girton and drummer Bob Scott. This group recorded three albums, culminating in 1973's Last Train to Hicksville. Following years of critical success, the album gained the group wider acclaim, peaking at #67 during an eighteen-week stay on the Billboard album chart; during this period, the group headlined at Carnegie Hall and appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Flip Wilson Show. Nevertheless, Hicks dissolved the group by the end of the year, a decision that inspired a Charles Perry-penned Rolling Stone cover story.[6] In 1997, he reflected on the decision: “It was getting old. We became less compatible as friends. I was pretty disillusioned, had some money, and didn’t want to do it any more.”[7]

Over the next decade, Hicks seldom recorded while subsisting on Hot Licks royalties in his adopted hometown of

opioids and cocaine, his reputation was sullied by a series of belligerent solo concerts. Following rehabilitation, he appeared with Asleep at the Wheel at Farm Aid II in 1986, auguring his return to the popular consciousness. Although he briefly resumed using alcohol and cannabis in the mid-1990s (a period that culminated in arrests for public intoxication and driving under the influence), Hicks would credit Alcoholics Anonymous with maintaining his sobriety.[4]

The classic Hot Licks lineup reunited for an appearance on

on accordion/piano, Stevie Blacke on mandolin/violin, Paul Robinson on guitar, Alex Baum on bass and former Hot Lick Bob Scott on drums.

Beginning with Beatin’ the Heat (featuring

Ricki Lee Jones and Brian Setzer) in 2000, Hicks returned to releasing albums with a reconstituted lineup of the Hot Licks on Surfdog Records. Alive and Lickin’, a live album with the Hot Licks, followed in 2001. In 2003, Surfdog released Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks: Featuring an All-Star Cast of Friends, a live CD/DVD package. These albums reinvigorated Hicks, and the guests reflected their longtime admiration for the Hot Licks. Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks' comeback was met with widespread critical acclaim and led to several more albums under the Surfdog label. Selected Shorts featuring Jimmy Buffett, Willie Nelson and Gibby Haynes
was released in 2004, then a downloadable compilation of Hicks's previously released duets in 2007, Tangled Tales in 2009, Crazy For Christmas in 2010, and Live at Davies in 2013. To honor Dan on the first anniversary of Dan Hicks passing, Surfdog Records released Greatest Licks – I Feel Like Singin’, a compilation album paying tribute and celebrating Dan's life and legacy, in February 2017.

In his later years, Hicks occasionally played jazz standards at intimate venues in the San Francisco Bay Area with Bayside Jazz.[11]

In the film Class Action (1991), Hicks is seen performing with Eisenberg and Price at Rosatti's in San Francisco. He also can be seen in several documentary films, including Revolution (1968) and Rockin at the Red Dog (1996).

From its founding in 1977 until late in his life, Hicks played with the San Francisco Bay Area's Christmas Jug Band.[12]

Thomas Dolby covered his song "I Scare Myself".[13]

Musical style

Billboard called Hicks an eccentric whose music contained elements of country, folk, jazz, and comedy.[14] Hicks called his music "folk swing".[15]

Personal life

Following an on-and-off relationship spanning two decades, Hicks married concert promoter Clare "CT" Wasserman (a protege of

throat and liver cancer in 2014.[17] In March 2015, Hicks announced that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer.[2] On February 6, 2016, at age 74, he died from cancer at his home in Mill Valley.[18][19]

His posthumous memoir, I Scare Myself, was published in 2017. He spent hours on the phone with journalist Kristine McKenna every Friday for several years before his death. She edited these conversations into Hicks' autobiography.[20]

Discography

Albums

  • Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks (aka Original Recordings) (1969)
  • Where's The Money? (1971)
  • Striking It Rich (1972)
  • Last Train to Hicksville (1973)
  • It Happened One Bite (1978)
  • Shootin' Straight (1994)
  • The Amazing Charlatans (1996)
  • Early Muses (1998)
  • Beatin' The Heat (2000)
  • Alive and Lickin' (2001)
  • Dan Hicks & the Hot Licks – With an All-Star Cast of Friends (2003)
  • Selected Shorts (2004)
  • Canned Music (2006, DVD)
  • Tangled Tales (2009)
  • Crazy for Christmas (2010)
  • Live at Davies (2013)

Compilations

  • Moody Richard (1986)
  • The Very Best of Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks (1986)
  • Return to Hicksville (1997)
  • The Most of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks (2001)
  • Live (2005, UK)
  • Greatest Licks - I Feel Like Singin' (2017)

References

  1. ^ "Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks" (PDF). Danhicks.net. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
  2. ^ a b "Welcome to Hicksville!". Danhicks.net. December 9, 1941. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  3. Amazon.com
    . Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  4. ^ a b I Scare Myself: A Memoir. Dan Hicks with Kristine McKenna. Jawbone Press, 2017.
  5. . Retrieved February 26, 2019 – via Robertchristgau.com.
  6. ^ Perry, Charles (August 30, 1973). "Enigmas on Thin Ice: Dan Hicks Breaks Up His Hot Licks". Rolling Stone. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  7. ^ Keepnews, Peter (February 7, 2016). "Dan Hicks, of the Hot Licks, Dies at 74; Countered the '60s Sound". Nytimes.comaccessdate=October 10, 2019.
  8. ^ "Dan Hicks". Billboard.com. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  9. ^ "Liner Notes for Dan Hicks's "It Happened One Bite"". Richieunterberger.com. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  10. ^ "Dan Hicks". Music Liner Notes. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  11. ^ "Bayside Jazz with Dan Hicks". Baysidejazz.com. September 11, 2010. Archived from the original on February 11, 2016. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  12. ^ "The Christmas Jug Band: Media Kit: The CJB Story". Christmasjugband.com. Retrieved October 10, 2019.
  13. .
  14. ^ "Dan Hicks Biography". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  15. YouTube
  16. ^ Righi, Len (August 21, 2004). "Singer-songwriter Dan Hicks gets in his licks about music and modern culture". The Morning Call. Tribune Media. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  17. . Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  18. ^ WRAL Staff (February 6, 2016). "Wife says singer and band leader Dan Hicks dies at age 74". WRAL-TV. Capitol Broadcasting Company. Archived from the original on February 7, 2016. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  19. ^ Jones, Kevin L. (February 6, 2016). "Dan Hicks, San Francisco Folk Jazz Pioneer, Dead at 74". Retrieved February 6, 2016.
  20. ^ Liberatore, Paul (April 5, 2017). "Dan Hicks' brutally honest posthumous memoir which details his years of struggle with drugs and alcohol, 'I Scare Myself'". Retrieved September 11, 2020.

External links