Daniel
Ivan Hicks was born December 9, 1941 at St. Vincent's Infirmary
in Little Rock, Arkansas. He died peacefully, surrounded by
his loved ones, at 12:45 AM, February 6, 2016, at his home in
Mill Valley, California, following a two-year battle with throat
and liver cancer.
Dan was the only child of midwesterners Ivan L. and Evelyn
Kehl Hicks. Ivan was a career military man. The family moved
to California when Dan was about five, eventually settling in
what was then the small city of Santa Rosa, some 50 miles north
of San Francisco. But before moving to northern California,
the family lived for a time in the Los Angeles area, and it
was there that young Dan was in the audience for various network
radio broadcasts. This early exposure whetted his appetite for
broadcasting and performing.
CIRCA
1950
PHOTO COURTESY OF DAN HICKS
Musically,
Dan started out as a drummer, beginning while still in grade
school. He played the snare drum in his school marching band,
and by the age of 14 was playing gigs with area dance bands.
DRUMMER
WITH THE SANTA ROSA HIGH SCHOOL DANCE BAND, 1958
In
High School, Dan had the opportunity to further develop
his interest in broadcasting, and was in the Radio Guild at
Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa. He had a rotating spot
on a daily 15-minute local radio program called "Time Out
for Teens".
Dan
entered San Francisco State College in 1959, eventually
earning a degree in Broadcasting. He took up playing the guitar
around '59, and became part of the San Francisco folk music
scene, playing and singing in local coffeehouses starting in
1963.
In the spring of 1965, Dan became the drummer for a nascent
San Francisco folk-rock group called The
Charlatans, started by George Hunter. The group at that
time was more of a concept than an actual working band. But
they did rehearse, and found employment that summer as the house
band at the newly-opened Red
Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada. The popular hallucinogen-fueled
dances held at the Red Dog were the direct inspiration for the
legendary psychedelic San Francisco dancehall scene that blossomed
shortly thereafter.
THE
CHARLATANS, PHOTO COURTESY OF GEORGE HUNTER
L TO R: MIKE WILHELM, GEORGE HUNTER , RICHIE OLSEN, DAN HICKS,
MIKE FERGUSON
In
addition to drumming, Dan also played guitar and sang with
The Charlatans, performing some of his original songs. The Charlatans
played for several years at all the noted San Francisco halls,
but never achieved the commercial success enjoyed by other groups
that came on the scene after them, such as Jefferson Airplane,
The Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service. As Dan
explained it, "The Charlatans were kind of dysfunctional
anyway. There was no real management, and it was just kind of
some loose guys".
Dan
had other ideas about the kind of music he wanted to make,
and began putting together an acoustic combo which included
two female backup singers, who were dubbed "Lickettes".
Billed as Dan Hicks And His Hot Licks, the group began as an
opening act for The Charlatans, first appearing on stage in
January of 1968 at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, on
a bill with Country Joe & the Fish and the Charlatans.
|
Dan,
on the Origins of the Hot Licks
EXCERPTED FROM "A
CONVERSATION WITH DAN HICKS" PUREMUSIC.COM
"At
a certain point, the Charlatans were kind of falling apart,
there was no good management, didn't seem to be any future
in it. Nothing was materializing, nothing was getting
better. I was only fond of the music up to a point. Rock
and roll wasn't really my love."
"So I sort of took this single act thing and expanded
it. I got together with a violinist and a bass player,
to see if they could accompany me. We did it, essentially,
to make a little demo of tunes. But then I started getting
a couple of gigs, that kind of thing, and added the girls,
a female accompaniment came to mind. I was listening to
Sergio Mendes, stuff with female voices on it, and I kinda
liked that. The bass player's wife sang, and she had a
friend, and we gave that a shot, started doing gigs this
way. Actually, there was no violin yet, it was just two
girl singers, a bass and guitar. We did a thing at the
New Committee Theater in North Beach [San Francisco] and
got a good review from Ralph Gleason. I was still in the
Charlatans at the same time, and had to make a decision.
I figured I shouldn't do the Charlatans anymore, this
new act would allow me to do all my songs, and I was beginning
to get more prolific. Having other voices to write for,
even just by ear, was very inspiring. So I started writing
'I Scare Myself,' and that kind of thing."
|
THE
1968 DAN HICKS AND HIS HOT LICKS. PHOTO BY HERB
GREENE
L
TO R: JAIME LEOPOLD, SHERRY SNOW, DAN HICKS, TINA GANCHER, DAVID
LAFLAMME, JON WEBER
POSTER
FOR DAN HICKS & THE HOT LICKS' FIRST APPEARANCE
ARTISTS STANLEY MOUSE / ALTON KELLY • FAMILY DOG PRODUCTIONS
Their efforts soon resulted in a recording contract with Epic
Records. "Original
Recordings" was released in 1969, but Epic's production,
and their promotion of the album and the group was lackluster,
and it was not a commercial success. Only 4,600 copies were
sold.
COVER
PHOTO BY HERB GREENE
The Blue Thumb Years
After some personnel changes, and a deal with Tommy
LiPuma's Blue Thumb Records, what had then become
the "classic" Hot Licks ensemble went on to produce
the critically acclaimed and commercially successful albums
"Where's The Money?", "Striking It Rich" and "Last
Train To Hicksville". But, owing to pressures both internal
and external, Dan broke up the Hot Licks in 1973, at the height
of the band's popularity. Dan made the cover of Rolling Stone
magazine in August of 1973, with the story "Enigmas
On Thin Ice", about the band's break-up.
DAN
HICKS & THE HOT LICKS, FLIP WILSON SHOW, 1972
L TO R: MARYANN PRICE, SID PAGE, DAN HICKS, NAOMI RUTH EISENBERG,
JAIME LEOPOLD, JOHN GIRTON
DAN
ON THE COVER OF ROLLING STONE
AUG. 30 1973
|
Dan,
on the Break-up of the Hot Licks
EXCERPTED FROM "ENIGMAS
ON THIN ICE" BY CHARLES PERRY
ROLLING STONE #142, AUG. 30 1973
"I
just got tired of touring, of waitin' in airports and
goin' to hotels, seein' the same people all the time.
It'd got to the point I was just goin' through the motions
onstage. The idea was in my head for a year, a year and
a half.
"I just got off the stage in Columbus one day feeling
really drug and I said, 'I don't want to do this anymore.'
It'd become a big business trip; it wasn't a fun music
trip anymore. I wasn't in love with it the way I used
to be. So then everybody started runnin' around acting
like I meant the end of the group. That wasn't my idea."
"Can you comprehend a human mind, a state of mind,
where everything bothers you? Yeah, there were pressures
of touring and hassles in the band. But that ain't it.
It's also, ah, the inner demons that possess me. Small,
miniscule aliens from another planet."
|
Repurposed
Movie Soundtrack, "It Happened One Bite", 1978
After
the breakup of the Hot Licks, Dan began a low-key career
of acoustic performances, sometimes working solo, billing
himself as "Lonesome Dan Hicks". He wrote music for
commercials, television, and movies-- including the music for
a never-released Ralph Bakshi animated film. That music was
eventually packaged and released in 1978 by Warner Bros. Records
as "It Happened One Bite", with cover artwork
by Dan.
In the 1980s, Dan formed The Acoustic Warriors, a male
combo with whom he toured.
|
Dan,
1988 Interview
Atlanta Journal and Constitution
"Maybe
it's just me. I'm never OK. I always seem to be trying
to get it together... I think there's still room for me
and everything.... See, I've had periods when I wasn't
as ambitious, so the world didn't hear from me. Now, my
plan is to keep it going no matter what."
|
In
1994, Dan and the Acoustic Warriors recorded the superb (and
now out-of-print) live CD "Shootin' Straight", for the
Private Music label.
The Surfdog
Years
Dan
signed with Surfdog
Records in 1998. "Beatin' The Heat",
Dan's first studio opus since 1978, was released in August of
2000. It featured a return to the Hot Licks name and format
- complete with new Lickettes. It garnered rave reviews, and
was chosen by Time.Com as one of the Top Ten CDs of 2000. A
live CD ("Alive & Lickin'") soon followed.
In
September of 2003, Surfdog released a brilliant DVD/CD package
featuring much of Dan's 60th Birthday Bash concert, which
was held at San Francisco's Warfield Theater, as well as interviews
with musicians of note speaking about Dan's influence.
DAN
BACKSTAGE AT HIS 60TH BIRTHDAY BASH
WARFIELD THEATER, SAN FRANCISCO
Dan
and the Hot Licks continued to tour worldwide with an updated
version of the Hot Licks, traveling to Europe, the United Kingdom,
Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
2004 saw the release of "Selected Shorts",
a dynamic and critically acclaimed studio CD, featuring contributions
from such stars as
Jimmy Buffett, Jim Keltner, Gibby Haynes, Van Dyke Parks and
Willie Nelson. "Tangled
Tales", also on the Surfdog label, was released in
2009 to glowing reviews.
2010
saw the long-anticipated release of a Dan Hicks & The
Hot Licks Christmas CD, and it was all Hicks fans had hoped
for -- and more! "Crazy For Christmas" was
lauded by NPR's Fresh Air, the NY and LA Times, and The Washington
Post. Called one of the Best of 2010 by the Village Voice, "Crazy
For Christmas" also landed on Billboard's Heatseekers Chart.
In
2011, an all-star revue assembled at San Francsico's Davies
Hall to celebrate Dan's 70th birthday. The CD "Live
at Davies" (2013) captures the best of the night. It
includes several of Dan's biggest hits as well as some never
before released live! Special guests include Rickie Lee Jones,
Harry Shearer, Van Dyke Parks, David Grisman, Tuck and Patti,
John Hammond, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Ray Benson, and many others.
Dan
also occasionally booked and played gigs at various small venues
in the San Francisco Bay Area, as a vocalist with his swingin'
combo Bayside
Jazz. Those intimate, low-key jazz gigs were the favorites
of many Bay Area Hicks fans, and Dan also expressed his fondness
for them. Dan was a "jazz guy" at heart, and loved
doing the great standards -- with his special twist.
The
Dan Hicks Discography includes Original Recordings (with
His Hot Licks) 1969; Where’s The Money? (with His Hot Licks)
1971; Striking It Rich (with His Hot Licks) 1972; Last Train
to Hicksville (with The Hot Licks) 1973; It Happened One Bite
(1978); Shootin’ Straight (with the Acoustic Warriors)
1994; Early Muses 1998; Beatin’ the Heat (with the Hot
Licks) 2000; Alive & Lickin’ (live album with the Hot
Licks) 2001; Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks: Featuring an All-Star
Cast of Friends (live CD + DVD) 2003; Selected Shorts (with
the Hot Licks) 2004; Tangled Tales (with the Hot Licks) 2009;
Crazy For Christmas (with the Hot Licks) 2010; Live at Davies
2013.
