Joe Hicks

Listen/Download – Joe Hicks – Home Sweet Home Part 2 MP3

Listen/Download – Joe Hicks – I’m Coming Home Part 1 MP3

Greetings all.

The new week is here and I come to you today with an old favorite of mine, that has been marinating in the ‘to-be-blogged” on deck circle for a long time.

Naturally, there’s no good reason for that, other than every now and then I circle a record warily, waiting for just the right moment (Tenacious D referred to it as ‘inspirado’), when the need to whip it on you and the right time to tell the story intersected perfectly.

Or, I might just have waited too long and it got too far back in the queue.

Today’s selection is kind of a “combination of the two”, which was also the name of a song by Big Brother and the Holding Company, who were from San Francisco, which is where this record was made, so kismet being a force that I am (usually) unwilling to go against, I finally got my shit together and added ‘Home Sweet Home Pt2’ by Joe Hicks to the line up.

It has been so long, in fact, since I first picked up the 45 that I have no solid recollection as to where I heard it first.

The time that it’s been recorded and in my crates suggests to me that I either heard it or heard about it from someone at the Asbury Park 45 Sessions, but I can’t say for sure.

When I mentioned kismet above, there really was something in the Jungian, collective unconscious/web of life that was nudging me toward this point.

Last summer, whilst the fam and I were grabbing a nosh in our local burrito joint, staffed largely by alternative/tattoo/music types, where they always have interesting music on the PA, I was about to shovel some spicy chicken mole into my maw when my ears perked up.

Though I was almost certain that I was listening to Jimi Hendrix/Band of Gypsys, I was also pretty sure that they were playing a medley of Sly Stone-related tunes, including the famous riff from ‘Sing a Simple Song’ and, very strangely, a piece of Joe Hicks ‘Home Sweet Home’, a tune written and produced by Sly, but light years more obscure than ‘Sing..”

Naturally, as soon as I got home I kept on Googlin’ (as opposed to chooglin’, vis a vis San Francisco) and what do I discover but A) That WAS the Band of Gypsys, with Buddy Miles on vocals and B) That WAS ‘Home Sweet Home’.

As is turns out, Jimi and band were paying tribute to Sly by working two of his tunes into a medley of sorts with ‘We Gotta Live Together’, credited the whole shebang to Buddy Miles (in a way that would never pass muster today) and that was that.

Joe Hicks was a San Fran Bay Area homeboy of Sly’s who had done some earlier recording with Pat Vegas (of …and Lolly/Redbone fame) and then a few singles with Sly, including a massive version of ‘Life and Death in G and A’, and then went on to record an LP in 1973 for the Enterprise subsidiary of Stax.

Hicks was also a songwriter, working with Bobby Womack and Delaney Bramlett, and having his tunes recorded by Delaney & Bonnie and Aretha Franklin.

Oddly enough, though listed as ‘Home Sweet Home Pt2’ on the label, the song is actually a continuation of ‘I’m Goin’ Home Pt1’ aka the other side of the record (‘Home Sweet Home’ actually starts at the end of the other side).

‘Home Sweet Home’ is the funkier side of the record, and as soon as the horns drop in there is no disputing that this is a Sly Stone joint.

The tune has the kind of funky punch of ‘Thank You Fallettinme Be Mice Elf Agin’ by the Family Stone, and Hicks has a powerful, raspy voice that matches the funk power of the instrumental backing.

There’s not much out there about Hicks. The Enterprise album seems to be the last time he recorded (there’s another side listed in Discogs but I think it was attributed in error) and in a later interview Sly mentions that he (Hicks) had eventually gotten strung out on, and killed by drugs.

As it is, he remains one of the more interesting Sly-related artists, with a short but solid discography that hints at the possibility of bigger things that were never delivered.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll be back on Wednesday.

Keep the faith

Larry

 

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PS Head over to Iron Leg too.