Description
A guitar-wielding trickster with a sly grin and encyclopedic command of a dozen intersecting pre-World War II musical styles, Dan Hicks has been a Bay Area institution since the mid-1960s when he took over the drum chair in the seminal psychedelic band The Charlatans. By the time he stepped out on his own as the vocalist, guitarist and leader of the Hot Licks, he had expanded his stylistic palette, blending strains of jazz, country blues, Gypsy swing and bluegrass into a highly personal “Hicksian” sound. Ambivalent about bandleading, he broke up and reassembled the Hot Licks several times, while becoming a commercial and critical favorite with early ‘70s classics like Striking It Rich, Where’s the Money? and Last Train to Hicksville. Hicks later toured with a new band, the Acoustic Warriors, culminating in the release of Shootin’ Straight in 1996. But it was his star-studded Hot Licks reunion, Beatin’ the Heat, featuring guest appearances by Elvis Costello, Rickie Lee Jones, Bette Midler, Tom Waits and Brian Setzer, that gained Hicks a whole new set of fans. With a long list of friends like that, there’s no telling who’ll be performing at his 70th birthday celebration!
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