We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
Another LP today that was not on my radar in 1972. It didn’t get radio play around here and although I might have heard “of” Dan Hicks & his Hot Licks, I had never heard their music.
It’s my loss. This stuff is groovy, baby. The Bay area group is a mash-up of jazz, western swing, classical guitar and what was known as “hot rhythm”.
The songs range from serious to funny, and although their tongues are planted firmly in cheek, you can tell they love this stuff and that love comes through. Plus, it swings hard!
Hicks had cut his chops with the Charlatans (the group that became the Grateful Dead) and formed the band originally with violinst David LaFlamme who later left to form “Its a Beautiful Day”.
Led by Hicks and his voice & guitar, the group is augmented mightily by Sid Page on electric violin and mandolin…and the angelic voices of the “Lickettes”, Maryann Price and Naomi Ruth Eisenberg. The songs are better everytime they appear and you begin to look forward to their contributions.
My faves on the LP include “Innocent Bystander”, O’Reilly at The Bar”, “Woe The Luck”, “I Scare Myself” and the beautiful “Presently In The Past”.
Hearing this is going to get me to dig deeper into their catalog. You can do alot worse on your daily listen to a bunch of folks who play & sing great but keep their sense of humor about the whole endeavor.
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