Back in his heyday Dan Hicks made perfect soundtrack music for coming down off acid trips — a musical Visine for the third eye. It was mellow enough to soothe frayed nerves, but warped enough to make you believe Dan understood.
Though Hicks & the Licks rose from the rubble of flower power (and wilted right about the time everyone started realizing the ’60s were over), the music they left behind is surprisingly timeless. It’s an innovative, near-seamless mix of American roots styles — string band, C&W, western swing, jazz, Tin Pan Alley — all done mainly on acoustic instruments.
And the voices. Hicks, a former member of the Charlatans (a pre-psychedelic San Francisco band that was playing “Wabash Cannonball” before country-rock was cool), handled most the leads, backed by Maryann Price and Naomi Ruth Eisenberg (collectively known as the Lickettes).
Sometimes the Hot Licks edged toward campiness, but the sound was so unique and the humor so droll that they never seemed outright corny. Almost all the cuts on Return To Hicksville are winners. “The Buzzard Was Their Friend” is a surreal musical cartoon. “Presently In The Past” is a country waltz with brassy vocals by Eisenberg. And you’ve gotta admire “Walkin’ One And Only” for idealizing a zippy dude whose “suit’s a perfect fit” in an era where fashion sense was dictated by the number of patches on your jeans. Hicks’ finest (and most famous) song is “I Scare Myself”, a slow, smoky and indeed spooky tune with a transcendental violin solo by Sid Page.
One problem with this compilation is that it missed some important songs. The saddest omission is “It’s Not My Time To Go”, a jarringly raw samba-like tune of alcoholic despair in which Hicks cast aside all the goofiness and ached for the world to hear. This was the last song on the Hot Licks’ last album; alas, it was their time to go.
