Dan Hicks, RIP

Singer, songwriter and guitarist Dan Hicks, whose eccentric style earned him a cult following and laid roots for the Americana sound, died on Saturday (2/6), after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 74. From the New York Times:

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.

He came to call his music “folk swing,” but that only hinted at the range of influences he synthesized. He drew from the American folk tradition but also from the Gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt, the Western swing of Bob Wills, the harmony vocals of the Andrews Sisters, the raucous humor of Fats Waller and numerous other sources.

The 1972 album “Striking It Rich” by Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks.
“It starts out with kind of a folk music sound,” Mr. Hicks explained in a 2007 interview, “and we add a jazz beat and solos and singing. We have the two girls that sing, and jazz violin, and all that, so it’s kind of light in nature, it’s not loud. And it’s sort of, in a way, kind of carefree.”

Dan, you will be missed but your music and influence live on. Rest in peace.

Check out a few videos and song streams of Dan, below.

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