Re: Dan Hicks

Dear Bob,

I can’t tell you how pleased I was to read your post on Dan Hicks. First, it helped bring me out of a deep funk I had been in since his wife Clare called me Saturday morning with the news that Dan had passed. Also, it was great to read about his talent and achievements in some form other than an obituary.

We were close…close to the point that my wife Gill and I had decided to name our second daughter after Dan. Her name is Danielle. Whenever Dan and I spoke to one another, he would always ask, “How’s what’s-her-name?” I feel fortunate to have spoken to him just the week before his demise, and though he sounded weak, we spoke very enthusiastically about our mutual admiration for the “swing” era, and I did get a chance to send him some Ellington, Johnny Hodges, and Ben Webster. Also some sister Rosetta Tharp. His wife Clare e-mailed me that he loved it. She also told me that he listened to music right up to the end.

I was also glad that you spoke so highly of “Striking It Rich.” I had just mentioned to a friend that out of the three albums we did together at Blue thumb, “Striking it Rich” was my favorite. Not to take away from the other two as they certainly had their moments, but we caught that magic that happens sometimes when you put six talented people in a room together.

They were such a delight to see in person. That’s why I suggested to Dan his first album for us should be with a live audience. In that case it was the Troubadour.

At the time we were planning the second release, which was going to be a studio album, I was working with a very talented and astute engineer by the name of Bruce Botnick, who worked at Sunset Sound. I asked him how could we keep the band within close proximity to one another for that live effect and still keep the microphone leakage to a minimum. So he set the room up with Dan, his rhythm guitar, and the Lickettes on one side, and the violin, standup bass and guitar opposite them, within eye contact, and about six feet separating them. Having the “live” side of the mics opposite each other cut the leakage to the point that we decided not to use any baffles, so what you’re hearing is a great performance in the middle of all that room ambiance. We may have fixed a few vocal phrases, but otherwise it was all live.

Elvis Costello was a big fan of Dan’s. As a matter of fact, he recorded something for one of Dan’s later albums. He brought up a good point to me when we communicated this weekend, If I may quote: “There is such a lot of soul in his songs and I wonder sometimes if the very stagecraft that made him so appealing to me when I picked up ‘Where’s The Money’ might have made less curious people think that this was just a novelty act and miss the depth of the songs.”

I also didn’t think that breaking the band up at the height of his notoriety helped his career, but I respected his decision. He wasn’t the type of guy who wanted to get up at five in the morning to do the Today Show, or have to deal with any of a number of things that come with the territory.

I think the trappings were just that to Dan, and he didn’t want any part of it. He certainly didn’t stop performing, My wife and I saw him about two years ago in Fairfield, Ct. playing to a rabid crowd of fans, clapping as they heard every gem of a tune being performed. Ahmet Ertegan walked up to Al Schmitt and me when I was doing the live album with Hicks at the Troubadour, and he said, “Are you recording this band of gypsies?” I told Dan afterwards, and he smiled and said “Yeh, I can see that.” Dan was short on bullshit, and long on talent, and I loved him like a brother.

Both my wife and I will miss him.

Tommy LiPuma

This is exactly what happened in 1964.

Elvis was king.

And then the Beatles wiped him off the map.

We had a decade of rock and roll. It had been whittled down to a formula. Sure, Bobby Darin had talent, but Fabian and the other Bobby, Rydell, were marginal players. But that was music, a sideshow.

And then…

A band with roots who didn’t believe in convention, who’d honed their sound off the radar, delivered an honest wallop that was undeniable.

And overnight the youth switched allegiance.

Could happen again. Probably will if Bernie Sanders is an indicator.

You know it’s not your mother’s world anymore when Gloria Steinem is on the wrong side of the issue. She famously told Bill Maher that young women were supporting Bernie because that’s where the young men were. Talk about no respect, Rodney Dangerfield’s rolling in his grave. When paragons of envelope-pushing are tone deaf as to what is going on you know you’re in the midst of a revolution.

The millennials were supposed to be pussies, whiners, coddled for life by their parents to the point they couldn’t survive on their own.

But with all that attention and education the youth became wise, and they realized their future was stolen. That whatever opportunity there was was slim, that the odds were stacked against them. And finally they found someone speaking the truth. Albeit a septuagenarian. But one who never wavered from his message, and didn’t put money first, but quality of life.

Tell that to the movie studios making endless comic book flicks.

Tell that to the record companies releasing paint by number, made by committee music.

They think the public wants it.

But the truth is people don’t.

They want honesty, credibility, something they can believe in.

And people believe in Bernie Sanders.

I was in the car with my octogenarian mother. Who took Steinem’s side, saying all young women should line up for Hillary. But when Hillary came on the radio she was fake and duplicitous and now spewing Bernie’s speech about coming down on Wall Street, like a rocker making a disco record in the late seventies. Her statements were unbelievable, there was no thread, she was saying what’s expedient, and that never resonates.

How did we get here? Where the entire nation believes money trumps everything?

As for Trump himself… He’s speaking to anger and unrest, but to a Luddite crowd with the fantasy that we can jet back to the past, where America is lily white and independent from the rest of the world. Whereas Bernie is talking about climate change and college debt and listening to him after Hillary even my mother had to smile, for he’s telling the truth.

Remember the truth?

That’s why Bob Dylan became so big, not because his voice was so good, not because his records were so slick.

For decades we all knew the truth but couldn’t say it. We lived in a land of fakery, everybody swore but you couldn’t in the newspaper, or on television. We knew the game was rigged, but we felt the best thing was to buy in and try to play.

But that was before all the seats were taken from the table. Come on, if you want me to play musical chairs at least leave some chairs. But now they’re gone. And the rich have all the money and tell us they create all the jobs and they’re entitled to their lifestyle and if we just worked a little harder we could be just like them.

Hogwash.

Donald Trump was born on third base.

Hillary Clinton went to Wellesley when a middle class person could pay for it.

We need heroes. We need leaders. And to be either you have to hew to your own drummer, you must know which way the wind blows, you must be honest.

It’s the best policy, honesty that is. That’s what they taught you in school. Back before you learned everything in school was a lie. But it’s not. Our nation is built on trust. No wonder it’s crapping out, there’s none left!

I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Supposedly Bernie’s gonna nose dive down south, where blacks are solid for Hillary. But why would that be, because they’ve been lied to and sold a bill of goods for their entire lives? No wonder Killer Mike supports Sanders.

And Trump was helped by Marco Rubio’s inane debate performance, wherein he repeated the same talking point again and again. Like a robot.

We don’t want robots, we want people, warts and all.

They say beauty is king, but if that’s so shouldn’t Bernie lose?

No, the truth is it’s about what’s inside, the nougat is everything. We all know the come on is fake, that the Kardashians are plumped up by plastic surgery. We’ll buy a ticket to the circus but when it comes to our own lives…

This is the beginning. This is what happens when you take it to the limit too many times. The underclass, the repressed, get angina. And when enough people get screwed a groundswell takes over the nation.

Which side are you on?

Are you kissing butt on the Koch gravy train?

Are you begging for a seat on the tech star’s plane?

Are you busy moving on up or are you looking back, to where your people are, to where you came from.

We’re all in this together. And if you’re fighting to get ahead and have forgotten this…

You’re gonna be left behind.

Is 74 the new 27?

Whereas the young rock stars die of misadventure…the oldsters seem to just wear out, to succumb to the maladies that affect the rest of us.

And we don’t like this, because we want our heroes to live forever.

Paul Kantner was an irascible fellow who could be notoriously hard to get along with.

But he piloted multiple bands under the moniker “Jefferson” that seemed to care not a whit about what else was going on. And money was secondary. As Bill Graham so famously said, whenever they got paid the band stayed home and smoked dope. They suspended the radio station at my high school when a student played “Eskimo Blue Day” over the intercom, it was a perk to liven up the hour before classes, but the rules of my public school didn’t mean shit to a tree, or the deejay involved

You can listen to “Surrealistic Pillow.” You can be wowed by “Saturday Afternoon” on “Baxter’s,” you can point out that Kantner cowrote “Wooden Ships,” but it appears you had to be there to understand. We had no idea San Francisco was a burgeoning hotbed of revolution, of alternative lifestyle, of thinking for yourself and not worrying what anybody said until…

We heard Jefferson Airplane, they were the first.

With Signe Anderson, who died at the same age and on the same day as Kantner. But it was with Grace Slick that the band made inroads. And isn’t it interesting that Slick has retired. She knows her time has passed. The kids listen and then they don’t, you become nostalgia, you stop being born, you’re busy dying.

And Maurice White captained a seventies superstar band that appealed to both blacks and whites and made a boatload of money, you still hear Earth, Wind & Fire tracks on the radio.

But you never hear Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks.

Hicks may not have been the hothead Kantner was, but he was certainly irascible, he suffered no fools, the idea of kissing butt was anathema to him. Furthermore, he broke up the band just after it got traction, when it was poised for the big time.

And his career never recovered.

He did it his way.

And Hicks’s way was like nobody else’s. This was back when all the bands didn’t sound alike, never mind work with the same writers and producers. You went off on your own adventure, you turned your album into the label, the company did a bit of publicity and then the audience embraced you and spread the word…

Or you were dead in the water.

Sure, it was great if radio played your track. The airwaves reached the most people.

But as much as we were listening radio was primarily a sampling service, we wanted to know what to buy, to get deep into at home, like “Striking It Rich.”

Hicks’s first LP was on Epic. It got no traction and it sounded compressed and slick as opposed to what came out on Blue Thumb.

That’s right, Krasnow and LiPuma’s label. As a matter of fact, Tommy produced “Striking It Rich,” which was Hicks’s second LP for the company.

The cover was a giant matchbook. Back when the art was important and you could be cheeky, when we appreciated your innovation, your creativity.

And when you dropped the needle…

You went on an aural adventure disconnected from everything else on the hit parade, which made it even more special. Who was this Hicks guy? And how about the Lickettes? Naomi Eisenberg and Maryann Price were stars in their own right!

Back before graduate school was an option, when there was a large middle class that would support you. All the musicians of yore had their minds exploded in colleges which were all about experimentation, as opposed to preparation for a career. You got in touch with your sensibilities, you tried out different personae, and then you foisted one upon the world.

You played to your muse, not to yourself.

There were no hits on “Striking It Rich,” but there are tracks I’ll never forget.

Like “Canned Music.”

And “Walkin’ One And Only.”

And the piece-de-resistance, “I Scare Myself,” which made violinist Sid Page a star overnight.

Today we listen to songs in groups, as if we’re afraid to disconnect and be alone with the sound, taken on a journey to the center of our mind.

But “I Scare Myself” is all about mood. Taking you to the edge of the world…and pushing you off. Back before Uber, back before cheap jet travel, when your freedom came from getting in your automobile and driving across this great country of ours, it was cuts like “I Scare Myself” that rode shotgun, it’s why we know them so well, we played them over and over, until they became integrated with our souls.

Which is why Dan Hicks’s passing is such a big deal. He’s part of our DNA, part of our fabric, and if he’s gone…

Maybe we will be too.

His music is only kept alive by us. Once we’re dead, will we be forgotten too?

Absolutely.

But we lived through an era when music was the grease, the highest calling of an adventurous young person, we were addicted to it, we went nowhere without it, despite having no MP3s, not even tapes, everywhere you went music was playing, it was a main topic of conversation, the money was just a byproduct, because when you’re selling truth, when you’re purveying excellence, we’ll give you all we’ve got.

So either you know what I’m talking about or…

You’ll listen to the below playlist and hear something that sounds unlike anything else, but is strangely affecting. You’ll get insight into 1972, when the album was everything and it wasn’t about building filler around the single but putting your best foot forward, making a statement, getting your vision down on wax.

AND WE RESONATED WITH IT!

Dan Hicks is not the only one.

And despite having no hits, he played Carnegie Hall, he made the cover of “Rolling Stone,” before that placement was reserved for TV stars and celebutantes.

It’s a sad day.

Dan Hicks – Spotify

And the winner of the night?

HONDA! For offering free Uber rides home, at least in SoCal, where I was watching.

You make the most of an opportunity. The advertisements were so busy being clever that they missed their target. You want to make us believe in your product and want to use and buy it. But in an era where fame is everything and substance goes out the window it’s no surprise that Madison Avenue demonstrated cluelessness.

But the truth is our nation is in a mass upheaval. That’s the essence of both Trump and Sanders. We want the truth, authenticity and credibility, we want to be respected, and when you see only dollar signs we shrug and move on.

Sometimes you have to say no. All exposure isn’t good exposure. What was the chance casual Coldplay fans would be infected by the band’s performance and purchase tickets to their show? Close to nil.

Now the band has a stink upon it, relegated to second tier status in their own supposedly shining moment, they appeared to be smiling nitwits in a sea of humanity that resembled nothing so much as Up With People, the lame, safe, halftime show the NFL used to employ, when musicians abhorred the rules and regulations of sports, when they were all about rejecting cultural norms as opposed to embracing them for profit.

It’s a violent sport. What’s up with all the wimpy music?

Lady Gaga stretched out the national anthem to the degree there was barely time for football. She’s gotten a publicity pass she does not deserve, her last album was a stiff and her trek with Tony Bennett a sideshow. It’s a hits business, and she hasn’t had one in eons and probably will never have one again, why is she considered a national treasure?

Because the NFL and CBS don’t have their ear to the street. They don’t know there’s a generation gap. They just believe everyone will buy the crap they serve them. As if nobody under thirty wants to cut the cord, as if football deserves a spot in America’s heart along with apple pie and religion. Did you see the MVPs walk out at the beginning of the game? Terry Bradshaw could barely amble out. How could Goodell let this happen? How come everybody in the 1% has lost touch and perspective, not knowing their success depends on the little guy, who is arching his eyebrows and judging what they’re seeing?

Chris Martin looked like a dork. And although the video stage was cool, he and his band’s music never lit up the joint. And the diversions looked like something from the June Taylor Dancers, but Jackie Gleason would want nothing to do with them. You could barely hear the vocals and you had the nincompoop teens running out to swarm the stage, even though they were barely conscious the last time the band had a hit. It was a celebration the audience was left out of. You could do nothing but sit there and wonder why anybody cared.

Until Bruno Mars took the stage.

Bruno knew it was not about music so much as show, and he delivered. Slinking around on stage with his backup singers you were energized and enticed. It may have been meaningless, but at least it was satisfying. Music is like porn, you know it when you see it. And Mars was the only person on stage who seemed to come from the music business.

Beyonce came from the gym. She was working so hard that when she aligned with Chris and Bruno in the finale she was nearly exhausted. She too missed the message, 2016 isn’t about reveling in your excellence, adoring you from afar, but embracing you when you get down in the pit with us, your audience. I’m not in that good a shape and most Americans aren’t either. Watching Bey was like watching an Olympian, you could respect her, but you just could nor warm up to her.

Never mind the chutzpah of doing her new song. I give her credit for that actually, most of the audience was unfamiliar with most of Coldplay’s material so what difference will it make? Did it help her sell tickets?

Not much.

Not for Coldplay either.

You see we’re inundated with marketing messages. And we choose what to pull in, what to embrace. We have no problem watching entertainment and then discarding it nearly instantly. I mean who at home is sitting there saying…I didn’t know Beyonce was going on the road, let me fire up my credit card and drop $100+ a ticket. No, the decision to go is much more considered these days. Sure, it’s hard to get the message out, but it’s not hard to say no if you’re a customer.

So why is it so hard for a manager to say no?

Come on, you see witless actors whoring themselves out, everybody from Anthony Hopkins to Christopher Walken to Helen Mirren. But they’re chameleons, filling roles. We don’t believe in their personalities, we don’t even really know who they are!

But musicians touch our souls. They’re consistent. They stand for something.

But the only thing Chris Martin and company stood for is promotion. And we know hype when we see it.

It was a strange game, dominated by defense. It may have been Peyton’s last, but one wonders if Brock Osweiler could have done just as well. Still, it was riveting to see Cam Newton, the biggest star on the gridiron according to the industrial hype machine, be completely hamstrung. Not so much by any individual, but a team, the Denver defense.

After losing the Super Bowl two years ago, Elway retooled. Threw out what didn’t work. He didn’t put new paint on an old edifice, he got a clean piece of paper and started over. Kudos to him, it worked!

We need a clean piece of paper in music. We need musicians who have some self-respect, who think they’re bigger than the game, who are willing to turn down promotional opportunities because they make them look small, like Coldplay.

But the NFL knows nothing about music. It wants something entertaining, but not edgy. But in music, that’s death. Then again, we’ve got so much of that on today’s scene. It’s almost like the string-pullers don’t want to champion anything outside the box, they want it safe.

But the world is dangerous.

Music used to reflect this.

The only peril on the field today was to the players.

Coldplay was immune.

No, that’s not true. By refusing to turn down this promotional opportunity they revealed the band to be the sham that it is. Four blokes who should have stayed in college who appeal to white people afraid of edge.

Sid Vicious is rolling in his grave.

Remember, you win in music when you’re outside, when you play by your own rules, when you behave like the rock star you are, not a tool of the man.

It wasn’t quite Billy Squier territory, but Coldplay’s career was stopped in its tracks today. Now fans will be subjected to hatred for their choice. We all saw the show and said HUH?

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