Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks perform at the Electric Owl (928 Main St., Vancouver) as part of Capilano University's Cap Global Roots Series, Monday, Nov. 11 at 8 p.m. Tickets $27 (advance), $30 (at the door). For more information visit electricowl.ca. For tickets go to http://ticketf.ly/HuVCDK.
A hiss. A pop. And then western swing.
The 78 spun and Bob Wills sang of San Antonio roses and stars and stripes on Iwo Jima.
Dan Hicks listened. Some musicians spend their lives chasing a sound or a style, but rather than being formed by a single performer, Hicks is informed by a host of musicians. Folk, country, and jazz have all contributed to the singer-songwriter's reservoir of phrases, ideas and arrangements he experiments with in his own compositions.
As a teenager Hicks' taste for swing bent to jazz, and he began his career behind the drums, soaking up Hoagy Carmichael standards like "Stardust" and "Heart and Soul."
"It was just all kind of a source.
Everybody was a source for me," he explains, his voice thick with years on the road, his cadence slow and deliberate.
Speaking from Mill Valley, Calif., Hicks recalls picking up his first guitar at 20 during San Francisco's folk music revival of the early 1960s.
"I started strumming the guitar and it opened up a whole new other world of music for myself, the folk stuff. I kind of combined the two to make the Hot Licks sound, I think. I don't know if it was intentional, but it was what I had available," he says.
"I guess I wrote my first tune when I was about 20 or 21. Before then I don't know if I'd written much of anything. I wrote a term paper."
Hicks' musical world is deep and broad. He sings. He scats. On occasion he may even yodel.
Singers Daria and Roberta Donnay form three-part harmonies with Hicks while the violin and guitar capture the piercing, mournful tone of flamenco. His most recent album, Live at Davies, may even include a kazoo solo.
Asked about his favourite songs, Hicks turns cantankerous.
"I can't conjure up some songs that I think are good. I don't know whether you mean mine or in the world or the vast amount of songs that exist today," he says. "I'm not going to answer that question. I don't like it. I don't like that question."
Five minutes after the phone interview ends, Hicks calls to apologize.
"A favourite song of mine that I wrote is 'I Scare Myself,' and my favourite song in the world is 'Stella by Starlight,'" he says.
The question was too reductive and the musical world is too big, Hicks explains of his initial refusal to answer.
The apology seems emblematic of Hicks' journey from a punk in folk musician's clothing to his current status as a treasured troubadour.
"I was kind of a confrontational 'How the f!@#k is everybody tonight?' kind of guy," he says of his early touring days in the late 1960s.
The audience at today's venues are a little gentler, he says.
"I think the higher the ticket price the more civil the people," he says. "There are a lot of people that look like they're about as old as I am. We're all more mature now."
At 71, touring is both a joy and a necessity for Hicks.
Asked what propelled him back on the road, Hicks replies: "Basically, economics. It's one of my sources of incomes. If I wasn't to play, I wouldn't have that money. I'm not independently wealthy or anything. I didn't write 'Stardust.' I still like to do it, that's the other part of my answer."
In 2000, Hicks collaborated with Surfdog Records to form a new version of the Hot Licks.
"I still like getting on the stage and singing with people and keeping the thing alive," he says, pausing and repeating the phrase: "Keeping the thing alive."
While some of his contemporaries bowed out of the music business to find more dependable employment, Hicks says he never contemplated putting down his guitar.
"This is sort of like my calling, and there's always just enough to keep me going. The desire to make the music, be creative, that never left."
Live at Davies includes "He Don't Care," a slow tune about a slow stoner that includes lyrics like, "He's always stoned. He's never not stoned."
As the song nears its conclusion, Hicks draws laughter from the crowd by calling out: "It's almost over, people." With plans for new songs and a new album in the works, the eclectic and experimental work of Dan Hicks is hopefully far from over.
