The Walkin’ One and Only Rides In
Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks play The Solar Center
Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks are playing the KTAO Solar Center Sunday, June 28. You do not want to miss this show.
Hicks is a master of a thoroughly American musical form – folk-jazz. Or is it maybe cowboy Latin swing with a little chipotle seasoning? Sounds like a curious hybrid, que no?
Curious and musically adventurous, Hicks also has a sense of humor – evident by his chord changes, quirky, yet natural phrasing and harmony choices. This guy is more than cool. In fact, he is so cool he is hot – and vice versa.
Like country swing fiddle master Johnny Gimble said, it’s hard not to listen to swing music and not smile a little.
Likewise, you are challenged to hear Hicks signature classics like “Walkin’ One and Only,” or the driving emotional recklessness of “I Scare Myself,” and not smile a little – if not from ear to ear.
The man is undeniably hip. Cool as a moose, etc. Performers like Rickie Lee Jones and Elvis Costello credit him with being a huge influence. Through his decades-long career he remains one of acoustic folk’s true treasures and true eccentrics.
Part of the psychedelic rock scene of San Francisco during the late 1960s, he played drums and a little guitar with the Charlatans, a band that has either been blamed or credited (depending on who you’re talking to) with the whole freakin’ Haight-Ashbury scene. They are also credited with being one of the first acts to play famous Family Dog.
“It’s not like I found myself in the middle of this heavy rock scene and decided to do something different,” Hicks said in a phone interview – I was in the Charlatans from ‘65 to ‘68, playing drums and some guitar,. Some folk stuff too – acoustic folk. I just started adding to that – added the upright bass, the fiddle and the girl singers – we started playing out and after a while I quit the Charlatans,” he recounted.
“I was more of a jazz guy anyway. So I got gigs. It was independent – a natural evolution. It’s what I like. I like acoustic ‘cause you can hear the singing,” he said.
So, besides being a counter-culture icon, he’s got a quirky, bad-boy reputation, that follows him to this day. On his website’s home page there’s a photo pf him from back-in-the day, flipping the bird.
I asked him about a story I had heard back in the early 1970s – about how he flipped off a Cleveland audience and walked off stage because the audience threw things at him and the band.
“I remember the incident you’re talking about. There were four bands on the bill at the Cleveland Auditorium. Steppenwolf, an all-girl band called Fanny, and the Native American band Redbone. It was kinda the wrong place for us. It was before [electronic] pick-ups were used. Since we just had acoustic instruments – playing through the PA – we were quiet. We were unknown too. We were in the middle of this big electric scene, and the audience started throwing ice cubes. Heckling is one thing but ice cubes are little hard things. We were ducking and dodging – we got through five songs and I told the audience off and we left the stage. The next day we went on the local FM rock station [WMMS,] and talked about the incident,” he said, laughing about the memory.
Hicks’ latest release, Tangled Tales,” is like chomping into one of Mante’s Chow Cart chile relleno specialties, and biting into a particularly hot and juicy pocket of goodness. And perhaps it’s a bit spicier than expected.
One big surprise is his buttery rendition of the classic Horace Silver / May Ellen Shashoyan Bossa Nova, “Song for My Father,” where his voice sounds like the most tender horn solo ever played.
His new album lineup of side men is certainly an unexpected treasure. David Grisman, and Charlie Musselwhite are just two of an incredible list of players joining him for this release.
On YouTube.com there is a video for the title track that is a total crack-up. It features his infamous finger photo with moving-mouth Lo-Fi animation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TnjPYyzwvM
On Hick’s website, under the bird, it says,
“In an era dominated b snot-encrusted bellybutton-gazing, semi-literate, mirror-fixated, testosterone-deprived, over-medicated, self-appointed prophets of a particularly lifeless strain of homogenized, lyrically depraved, self-indulgent faux-poetic songcraft, Dan Hicks stood out from the crowd. If the 1970s singer-songwriter scene had a single saving grace, musically, it was Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks”
– The Irate Pirate, Wrath of the Grapevine
Arrr! And a flip of the bird to ya, cultural icon, bad boy, hep cat and snappy dresser – Dan Hicks. I’ll be there or be square.
He’s traveling with a six-piece combo. That’s a lot of ways to split the money, I remarked.
“Split the money? What do you mean?” He laughed.
Advance tickets for Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks are $10 in advance. Children under 12 are free. Doors open at 6 p.m. the opening act, yet to be decided, will start at 7 with Hicks starting at 8 p.m.
