WOMAD

Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks

From United States

Biography supplied by management, March 2003:DAN HICKS & THE HOT LICKS In 1968, at the height of the psychedelic rock in San Francisco, Dan Hicks created Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. With this started a cool new musical adventure and an original style blending gypsy jazz, folk, swing-pop, Western bluegrass, and fast call-response vocals with female singers that was completely different from anything going on during that creative era. “Dan Hicks is fly, sly, wily and dry!” says friend Tom Waits, who sings on Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks’ newest studio album Beatin’ the Heat. “Dan Hick’s music is an inspiration and influence,” says Rikki Lee Jones, who also joins Dan on his new album. “Dan is a real singer and has an authority over a groove that we don’t get to hear unless he does it.” “ I’ve tried never to copy,” Dan Hicks says. “I always wanted to phrase things originally. We have two female voices, and me singing original songs and playing my drummer-knowledgeable guitar- you know, lots of rhythm.” Dan was the drummer in the seminal San Francisco rock band, the Charlatans, in the 1960s, before he turned to his acoustic guitar and the tight, swinging acoustic string virtuosity and hot, three-part harmonies that characterize The Hot Licks. “I was doing a single act around the Bay Area, as a side thing from the Charlatans, just me and my guitar. Then I started adding to that. I added a violin somewhere along the way. I guess I got the ensemble idea maybe a little bit from Django Reinhardt. It was just stuff I considered tasteful.”Beatin’ the Heat (Surfdog Records), Dan Hick’s and the Hot Licks latest rollicking studio album is the first studio recording since 1974. Produced by Gary Hoey and Dave Kaplan (the label owner who became a fan as a 12-year old seeing Dan on T.V.), the album includes gems recorded with some of Dan’s musical friends: “Strike It While It’s Hot” with Bette Midler, “I’ll Tell You Why That Is” with Tom Waits, “I Scare Myself” with Rikki Lee Jones, “I Don’t Want Love” with Brian Setzer, and “Meet Me On the Corner” with Elvis Costello.Alive & Lickin’ (Surfdog Records) is the first live album from Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks since 1971’s Where’s The Money? That made Hicks a cult icon, earning him hit album sales and the cover of Rolling Stone. Recorded during Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks 2001 U.S. Tour Alive & Lickin’ contains Hick’s unique vocal delivery along with the Lickettes’ cooing, harmonic backing vocals and percussion. “Dan Hicks is lightning in a bottle, says Bette Midler, who has recorded Hicks songs and sings a duet with Dan on “Strike It While It’s Hot” from Beatin’ the Heat. “I love him and thank God he’s back to lift us out of our musical doldrums.” “Strike It While It’s Hot”, says Dan, “is a hot number that tells a story about seizing the opportunity to change things for the better”. About “I’ll Tell You Why That Is” with Tom Waits, Dan says, “This is a song that lets you know that you are dealing with a man capable of explaining anything and everything and maybe in the sequel he will do that.”“As a long-time Dan Hicks fan, it was a real thrill to trade licks with Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks,” says Elvis Costello, who sings “Meet Me On the Corner” with Dan on Beatin’ the Heat. “ My songs tell stories”, says Dan. “ ‘Meet Me On the Corner’ is about a guy who is losing his grip and he’s desperately trying to reach out and touch somebody.” “Real instruments, real vocal harmonies, real guitar playing, real everything....count me in! I’m a huge Dan fan!” says Brian Setzer, who plays guitar on “Meet Me On the Corner” and “I Don’t Want Love”.For Hicks, Beatin’ the Heat was a step up on the learning curve. “I’ve really worked on becoming the singer I want to be”says Dan, whose mellow yet quick vocal style can recall Mose Allison. “Sometimes I surprise myself, and I stretch for notes I’ve never made before. That makes me feel good, because I know that I’m always improving. I try to sing a song a little differently every time to entertain myself. But I don’t want to sing so far off the melody you don’t know where it is. The idea is to communicate.”Hicks has a gift for odd and complex rhymes, and for using swing/jive vocabulary to deal with subjects and viewpoints that are unique, to say the least. Hicks says he doesn’t know where his unique and off-beat songwriting style came from. “I can’t really think of anyone who influenced me, except maybe sort of subliminally or collectively. Every now and then I’ve written a song and said, ‘Well, this has a Mose Allison cool about it,’ or ‘This could be a Roy Orbison tune.’ I’ll do that.” He sings about ironic romances, barflies, innocent freedoms, and flying saucer pilots in a refreshingly alternative tempo that jumps and swings with charm, humor and warmth.The live Alive & Lickin’ album seethes with Hick’s dry, sarcastic and surly stage demeanor and jazzy nonchalance. Rolling Stone calls the live show “ A dandy, jumping set, with all the essential elements of Hick’s campy cabaret intact: acoustic guitar and stand-up bass, gypsy-jazz fiddle, female singers repeating and riposting his lines.” The playful melodies and delightfully off-center banter are central to a Dan Hicks performance. Alive & Lickin’ features four new songs and is mixed with classics such as “ How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away” and “ I Feel Like Singin’” as well as twangy tunes from Beatin’ The Heat.Though the complexity of his lyrics is a Hicks trademark, he says that, if anything, the melodies come first. And it’s the melodies that are unforgettable on Beatin’ the Heat and Alive & Lickin’. “I always have some kind of melody going,” Dan explains. “ I usually write the words for 10 or 15 songs. Then about 15 melodies are written. Then they are thrown together into a hat and random pairings are made. This is the way the original songs for Beatin’ the Heat came into being. Each one tells a story.”Although Hicks songs have been recorded by artists ranging from Maria Muldaur to Bette Midler to Thomas Dolby (“I Scare Myself” was a hit for Dolby in the ‘80’s), Dan says he regards himself principally as a performer. “That’s what I do most of, you know. I write the tunes so I’ll have something to sing. I try to be spontaneous. I’m more on my toes when I’m up on stage. I think faster because it’s sort of a do-or-die situation. I’ve gone ahead and put my name on the whole thing, so I gotta come through.” A good Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks show is like a bit of musical theater, with the songs blending seamlessly into his relaxed, wryly funny shtick. 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 His Hot Licks) (1973), It Happened One Bite (1978), Shootin’ Straight (with the Acoustic Warriors) (1994), Beatin’ the Heat (with The Hot Licks) (2000) and Alive & Lickin’ (with The Hot Licks) (2001).And doing good songs are what Dan Hicks has always been best at. As Hicks puts it, “this music makes me feel so good.”For further information please contact:Surfdog Records1126 South Coast Highway 101Encinitas, CA 92024(760) 944-7873(760) 944-7808 fax