hi, as it turns out, I have a brother-in-law who's in the music industry, and he recently recieved a promo package (including bio, 8x10 glossy, and CD) from Private Music regarding Dan's album, and my sis (bless your heart, Cindy) forwarded it to me. Thought y'all might be interested in a look. When I have time, I'll scan the photo into .gif SR ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Dan Hicks Shootin' Straight "Shootin' Straight" is the first album from the incomparable Dan Hicks since 1978, and marks the premiere release on Private Music's new division of unique, live recordings, "On The Spot" Dan Hicks' original music -- an ingeneous blend of jumpin' jazz, western swing-pop, ironic humor and contemporary dark-mood pieces (or "folk noir", as Dan says) -- sounds as fresh and witty today as it did 25 years ago, when Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks shot to national prominence, playing smart acoustic music in an era of thumpin' electric rock. Famous for his delightfully off-center point of view, Dan is a gifted singer-songwriter who has always ignored music industry fashion and gone his own way. Playing what pleased him, he shaped a singular style, captured beautifully on "Shootin' Straight" Recorded live at Mc Cabe's Guitar Shop (a Santa Monica, California icon), this is a prime performance by a bonafide American original. It features all new or never-recorded songs by the composer of such classics as "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?", "Canned Music", "I Scare Myself" (a hit for Thomas Dolby in the '80's) and "Where's The Money?" The new tunes are rich in the pleasures of Hicksville, where wry lyrics and tasty melodies swing on the jaunty soubnd of a string and accordian band. Off the cuff, sardonic Dan stitches them together with a funny, free-rambling rap that keeps everybody loose. Tuning up between songs, he tells the crowd: "We wnat to make sure we tune, ladies and gentlemen, We're not the Grateful Dead. They can play for seven hours and not tune once. We can't do that. We're not that good." A jazz-based singer, whose lazy phrasing and mellow tone recall Hoagy Carmichael and Mose Allison, Dan is backed by his Acoustic Warriors, a deft ensemble that can stretch from bluegrass and the Boswell sisters to Bob Wills cowboy jazz and Swing Era riffing. they play Dan crafty arrangements, and their own improvised solos, with the dexterity and verve of the Django Reinhardt-Stephane Grappelli Hot Club of France. Dan's singing has never sounded more fluid and assured. "I've really worked on becoming the singer I want to be," says Dan, talking in his Mill Valley home, just north of San Francisco. "Sometimes I stretch for notes I've never made before. That makes me feel good because it means I'm improving. I try to sing a song a little differently every time to entertain myself. But I don't want to sing so far off the melody you don't know where it is. The idea is *communicate* with the audience. He launches the set with "Up, Up, Up," a charming jump tune that bounces in a 4/4 groove. The upward imagery begins with a typical Hicks twist: "My mother died from asbestos/My father's name was Estes/And I dont know if that messed us.. up or what it did." Dan can't recall what inspired the song, but figures "there must've been something in the news about asbestos. It's kind of a message song. You know, keep a life-affirming feeling. It's a song so cool they named it thrice." The title song, "Shootin' Straight", has foreboding mood, based on "a boy-girl situation I had experienced," Dan recalls. "I was thinking how my life wasn't moving in such a good direction. I used that imagery of a pool game to talk about straightening things up." "Hell, I'd Go!" is signature Dan Hicks -- a wonderful, comic ditty about zipping through the galaxy in a saucer, manned by little green guys. The blokes in the band "buzz" in, as the singing Martian-ettes. The Twilight zone riff in the middle "always gets 'em," Dan says, "We even leave two bars open where we just 'chunk-chunk', to give the audience time to laugh. When they don't, it's *our* private laugh that *they* didn't laugh." Ironically, Dan describes the brooding "Bottom's Up" as "a *lady's* drinkin' tune. It came from my own experience being in bars and not wanting to be bothered. She says, 'I don't mind drinkin' alone', and that's how I felt. I wanted to write it from a woman's point of view. They always get hit on, and they get tired of it." The womans who moves through "Texas Kinda Attitude"-- a saucy number, strutting in a laid-back medium groove -- "is a looker and she knows it, a real head-turner," says Dan, "though I didn't have anybody particular in mind." "Willy" is a dazzling, up-tempo toungue-twister about a character "who can party hardy all day and all night," he smiles, knowingly. "It's a guy who's out to get all he can; nobody can keep up with him." Dan colors the melody with lively falsetto yodels. "Savin' My Lovin'" reveals Dan's very definite sweet side. The song "is close to me. I never felt I had to go out every night. I always wanted to save my lovin' for the right, really fine woman." He find her in "13D", another amusing tongue-twister about a cat who's crazy about his baby. "There isn't a guy who wouldn't want to be in my shoes/But I wear a 13D." The song details "how many ways I can say I love you," according to its author. "Bar Stool Boogie" is a groovin' little number "for people who want to dance in clubs where there's no dance floor. They sit in their seats, jigglin' around." The tune is well spiced with some tart bottleneck slick slide. "A Magician" is Dan's bittersweet waltz about a guy who longs to turn back time, wishing he could change his behavior, so the woman he longs for would still love him. He sings it with soulful feeling. "Who Are You?" tells the tale of a jive character who "comes on to all the ladies, and tells them he can do anything," remarks Dan -- including ropin' dogies in the rodeo, and ridin' whales by hangin' on their tails. "Level With Me Laurie" dives into his dark, minor-key mood, opening with the ominous line "I never said I wasn't boring/At least it ain't me out there whorin'." Dan claims that Laurie actually "was a dancer I knew in North Beach, with a doorman bounce boyfriend. Me, I'm outta here." Dan calls "The Rounder" a relaxed blues shuffle, "an easy song, sort of a take-off on those '50s tunes, like 'Runaround Sue'." The set closes with "$100,000.00", a brisk romp through a smiling fantasy "about a bank job, clean getaway and celebration of same," Dan says. Irony reigns again, as the protagonist heads off to Reno to blow his ill-gotten booty. Dan Hicks was born in Arkansas, two days after Pearl Harbor Day. His father, a career military man, moved the family to California a few months later. Dan first performed at age 4, singing "Bell Bottom Trousers" at a PTA meeting. "At least that's what my parents tell me," says Dan, who began playing drums in grade school and went pro at 14, playing dance gigs around his hometown of Santa Rosa. A fascinating man of broad musical tastes, he grew up listening to country music on his parents' radio and, as a teenager, flipped for Benny Goodman and other Swing Era jazz musicians he heard on late-night radio, "when I was supposed to be sleeping; that music made me feel so good." Turned on to folk music as well, Dan took up guitar at 19, and began singing and playing in a Kingston Trio bag, before digging into bluegrass, jug band and blues. He performed at hootenannies around the Bay Area, while still playing jazz gigs abd studying broadcasting at San Francisco State. In 1965, Dan became the drummer in the seminal San Francisco rock band, the Charlatans. They were at the center of the early psychedelic scene, playing some of the first shows at the fabled Family Dog. In addition to drumming, Dan was a spark when he fronted the Charlatans, singing his original songs. At the sam time, he was also performing a solo folk act. In 1968, he hired a bass player and a violinist, forming the now historic band, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks. Afer a rave review from the esteemed and hip-credentialed critic, Ralph Gleason, Dan dropped rock to concentrate on his own brand of acoustic "swing-pop" Over the next decade, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks developed a major national following, releasing five records and appearing on the Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, and Flip Wilson TV shows. "The sound just kind of evolved," Dan graciously explains. "There were lots of things I liked -- Jim Kweskin's Jug Band, Joe Venuti with Eddie Lang, the Boswells, Bob Wills was certainly an influence. But I never copied. I always wanted to pharase things originally. We had the two female voices, and me singing original songs and playing my drummer-knowledgable guitar -- you know, lots of rhythm" Tired of the grind and leading a band, Dan broke up the Hot Licks in 1974. He worked solo, and with various small ensembles, for the next several years. He also did the occasional commercial, writing and singing a Levi's 501 ad. In 1986, he formed the Acoustic Warriors, with whom he continues to tour clubs and festivals around the country. Dan wrote two original songs for the film "Class Action" and was featured singing a duet with Michael Franks on his last disc. "It feels good to have a new record out," Dan concludes about "Shootin' Straight". "Some labels only want to hire kids with holes in their jeans. Sometimes I feel like I should've been born in the Swing Era, when jazz was the popular music and their was another kind of taste and style. But I don't think so. There are always people out there who like good music." **************** On the Spot, a division of Private Music 9014 Melrose Ave. West Hollywood, CA 90069 tel(310) 859-9200 fax(310) 859-7408 -- fin --- To get onto Dan Hicks mailing list: % echo "subscribe hix " | mail majordomo@sedona.intel.com or (for non-Unix) send mail containing ONLY the string "subscribe hix " to: majordomo@sedona.intel.com