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Influential Musician Dead at 74 — Known for a String of Quirky Songs Going Back to the Late Sixties

Feb 8, 2016  •  Post A Comment

The influential singer, guitarist, songwriter and frontman of the musical group behind songs such as “I Scare Myself” and “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?” has died. Rolling Stone reports that Dan Hicks, whose group “Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks” was a fixture of the counterculture music scene since 1969, died Saturday after battling cancer for two years. He was 74.

Hicks was a part of the San Francisco psychedelic rock scene in the mid-1960s as the drummer for the Charlatans before he formed the Hot Licks in 1967. The group had a soft country-rock sound, but the quirky tunes penned by Hicks resulted in the Hot Licks’ often being pigeonholed as a novelty band.

Various Hot Licks lineups survived well into the 21st century, with the classic period including a string of successful 1970s albums released either under the Hot Licks banner or as Dan Hicks solo albums, notably “Where’s the Money” (1971), “Striking It Rich” (1972), “Last Train to Hicksville” (1973) and “It Happened One Bite” (1978).

Here’s a taste of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks from 1972, featuring what many consider the classic Hot Licks lineup of Sid Page on violin, John Girton on guitar and Jaime Leopold on bass along with Lickettes Maryann Price and Naomi Eisenberg …

One Comment

  1. 74 seems to be the new 27; for the first time, I’m actually glad that I’m (only) 65…

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