‘Dan Hicks, a singer, songwriter and bandleader who attracted a devoted following with music that was defiantly unfashionable, proudly eccentric and foot-tappingly catchy, died on Saturday at his home in Mill Valley, Calif. He was 74… Mr. Hicks began performing with his band, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, in the late 1960s in San Francisco, where psychedelic rock bands like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead dominated the music sound. The Hot Licks’ sound could not have been more different.At a time when rock was getting louder and more aggressive, Mr. Hicks’s instrumentation — two guitars (Mr. Hicks played rhythm), violin and stand-up bass, with two women providing harmony and backup vocals — offered a laid-back, all-acoustic alternative that was a throwback to a simpler time, while his lyrics gave the music a modern, slightly askew edge…’
Source: New York Times
Oh, this is very sad, in the same week as two giants from Jefferson Airplane. One of the liabilities of my continuing romance with the music of my young adulthood is that its important practitioners are dropping like flies. My classic jazz and blues musician faves are long gone and more contemporary indie and alternative performers by and large still have a lot of life in them.
Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks have always had, and will always have, a constant place in my favorites playlist. So pleased I got to see him live, in intimate venues, a couple of times in the last decade. Go out and find “Where’s the Money,” “I Scare Myself” “Walkin’ One and Only” or “I Feel Like Singing” for a never-ending kick.
